Thunder 9s Travel To Uniondale

Thunder 9s

The GCAA Thunder 9s football team traveled to Uniondale to take on the Knights on what was another picture perfect autumn day. The Uniondale High School bleachers were filled with 5,000+ fans ready to cheer both teams on. The Thunder game day captains, Joe Morreale, George Petropoulos, and Matt Thomas met at mid field for the coin toss. The Knights won the coin toss and elected to begin the game on defense. Out rumbled the Thunder offense who were on a roll scoring 19 points in their last two games. The Thunder offensive line of Jack "The Bus" Tobin, James O'Sullivan, Nick "Tank" Gray, and Luke Armstrong, were firing off the ball moving the Uniondale defenders back on every play creating holes for the running backs, Brian "Moose" Colamussi and Brian Goepfert. Colin DeAngelo broke a long run to the Uniondale 5 yard line behind key blocks from Joe Morreale and Alex "Hammer" Wood, unfortunately the Thunder could not punch it into the end zone and turned if over on downs. As Uniondale was driving on their possession, the Thunder defense held the Knights on a critical 4th and 2 with some critical gang tackling from Brendan Digan, Joe Williams, Jack "Spoon" Brennan and Mike Brennan to get the ball back to the Thunder offense. With time running out the Thunder went to the hurry up offense, with a throw back pass from Moose to Brian Goepfert, Uniondale was called for pass interference, so move the chains the Thunder were at mid field with a first time but time was running out, Colin DeAngelo made a nice run followed by a six yard gainer from Jay McNamara. You could hear the crowd yelling...or least you could hear one of the grandmothers yelling... "GO THUNDER!". Time ran out on the drive and the score was 0-0 at the half.

Game Day Captains-Matt Thomas, George Petropolous and Joe Morreale

Jack Murtagh joined the team at half time to cheer his team mates on, he is on the injured reserve list (sore ribs from a non-football related injury). The second half was another defensive battle and Evan Nagle was again playing out of his skin make critical tackles on the sweeping offense from Uniondale. Then the Thunder got into a grove again, Matt Thomas at QB ran the counter play to Moose, then setup a nice run up the middle to Hammer. Here we go again the Thunder got down to the 10 yard line again but could not punch it into the end zone. Late into the fourth quarter it looked like the game was heading into a 0-0 tie when the Uniondale tail back make a nice cut and broke through the Thunder defense to score, but the Thunder held them on the extra point with a key tackle from big Jack "Spoon" Brennan. The Thunder were moving the ball again but fumbled and Uniondale was able to capitalize on the mistake and add another score late in the game.

Big Blocks by the O-Line

The Thunder may have lost the game but in the eyes of the coaches, parents, friends and family they are all winners in our book and played extremely hard and most importantly conducted themselves as true sportsman before, during and after the game, great job gentlemen! Come out and cheer the Thunder on for their next game on Sunday, October 22nd at 11am at Stewart field as they take on the Elmont Cardinals, we hope to have Bobby Menges rejoin the team for this critical game.

Moose and Goepfert open down field

And just in case you are not getting your fill of football come out and cheer the two other 9 year old Thunder teams, yes there are three teams in total at 9 years old, and they will be playing at the Community Park Pool field this Friday, October 20th at 6pm and 7:30pm for a little Friday night football. Go Thunder!

Thunder Defense Strips the Ball Key Blocks by Luke Armstrong-48 and Joe Morreale-84 clear the way Colin DeAngelo Runs for Big Yardage