Most teams need a punishing defense and a balanced offensive attack to be successful. The Garden City Trojans appear to have that and a whole lot more.
The Trojans posted their season-opening third straight shutout by holding defending Conference II champion-Elmont to a mere 99 yards and senior quarterback Matt Montgomery threw two touchdown passes and ran for another in a 28-0 win Sept. 26.
The game began as the anticipated defensive battle until Garden City (3-0) broke the deadlock in the final minute of the first quarter. The Trojans took advantage of a short punt and needed just five plays to score, capped by Montgomery’s 14-yard strike to Kevin Dachille at the left side of the end zone.
Garden City doubled its lead midway through the second quarter on Montgomery’s 1-yard sneak. Brian Fischer, Stephan Jahelka and Mike Giannone all had key runs to set up the touchdown.
Montgomery connected with Dachille again from six yards out in the final seconds of the first half to push the lead to 21-0. The drive featured a perfectly executed hook-and-ladder play, in which receiver Jared Mitchell caught a pass from Montgomery and pitched the ball back to Fischer in the same motion for a 10-yard gain. The yardage canceled out a holding penalty on the previous play and brought the ball back to the Elmont 30.
Mark Ellis capped the scoring with a 4-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter. The Trojans have outscored their opponents a whopping 105-0.
Elmont had allowed just 13 points heading into the contest.
From that point, the only drama was whether the Trojans could get the shutout. Elmont (2-1) drove to the Garden City 14-yard line in the final two minutes, but consecutive incomplete passes in the end zone thwarted the rally. The first attempt was broken up by defensive back Patric Berkery while he and Spartans receiver Stevens Cadet battled for the ball in the air.
The Spartans’ only other threat came in the third quarter when they drove to the Garden City 31, but running back Kevin Aristil fumbled on the ensuing play for an 8-yard loss and Elmont turned the ball over on downs two plays later.
Diashawn Miller, who threw four touchdown passes while helping the Spartans score 65 points over the first two games, was chased out of the pocket constantly by the Trojans’ swarming defense and misfired on a lot of his passes before finishing with just 27 yards. The Elmont offense didn’t pick up a first down until the third quarter, deflating the packed homecoming crowd.
Eight Garden City rushers combined for 242 yards. Jahelka had 101 of those and Fischer added 89.
The Trojans avenged an 18-13 loss to the Spartans last year, their only defeat in 13 all-time meetings in the all-time series dating to 1993.
