Kingston tops Peekskill for second straight win
Tigers score 42 straight points en route to second straight victory
Kingston High scored 42 consecutive points then survived a wild fourth-quarter comeback bid by Peekskill to win Friday night’s non-league football game at Dietz Stadium 42-34.
This marks the first time the Tigers have won two in a row in a single season since they defeated Wallkill and Rondout Valley to close out the 2017 campaign. Kingston is 2-1 heading into next Friday’s spring season finale against Newburgh at Dietz.
Several players for both sides had big performances. Junior Dylan Noble completed four passes for 188 yards and three touchdowns in the first half for the Tigers to build a 28-6 advantage. ShaCorey Jones had three catches for 68 yards and two TDs and also ran for 52 yards and one score for Kingston.
Jayson Tinsley had a huge game for Peekskill (2-2), scoring all five of the Red Devils’ touchdowns. He rushed for 102 yards three TDs on 10 carries and also caught four Elijah Ritter passes for 109 yards and two more scores.
Touchdown runs by Jones (seven yards) and Sy Lyons (nine yards) opened a 42-6 advantage for Kingston as the the third quarter ended.
Tinsley’s 4-yard burst stopped the Devils’ scoring drought, cutting the margin to 42-14 with 7:51 remaining. Kingston went threeand-out on its next possession and Tinsley answered with a 15-yard TD run.
Peekskill then recovered back-toback onside kicks. Ritter found Tinsley for a 30-yard TD with 37 seconds left to make it 42-26. Right after the next recovery, Ritter rolled
left and hit Tinsley in stride for a 49-yard TD, then threw to Andrew Hull for the 2-point conversion to reduce the deficit to eight points with 25 seconds left.
With the Tigers anticipating another onside attempt, the Devils gambled and booted a long squib kick toward the Kingston end zone, leading to a 22-man downfield scramble. The Tigers’ Cy Venable got to the ball first to clinch the Kingston win.
“I was glad that they got a second win. I’m really proud,” said Kingston coach Quintin Johnson, who saw his team struggle early on with 59 yards in penalties. “They answered. We started off rocky and they found a way to settle in”
Kingston scored 28 points in the final 4:30 of the first half. Noble had scored on a 1-yard sneak and Tyler Longo kicked the first of his six extrapoints to put the Tigers ahead at 7-6 with 4:20 left in the half. Longo recovered his own onside kick and Noble hit Owen Niles for a 50-yard TD.
After linebacker Zander Vogt intercepted Ritter, Jones split two defenders in the end zone and caught a 23-yard strike from Noble. The Tiger defense, which held Peekskill to 110 yards in the first half, stopped the Devils on fourth down at midfield and Noble connected again with Jones on a 43-yard score as time expired.
“We’ve been really trying to expand our offense a little bit,” Johnson noted. “We’ve been a heavy run team this year. We thought we had some opportunities to get some of our pass schemes in and we tried to take advantage. We did some good things that we can build off of. We pass-blocked well, we ran some plays that we haven’t really ran a lot in the past and we ran them well tonight. I was very happy.”
Shameer Peters had 1 ½ sacks, Noble combined with him on one of the takedowns and Fernando Salazer batted a pass down, all in a strong first-quarter defensive effort by Kingston.
“Our defense has played well throughout the season. They continue to do that again tonight,” Johnson said.
The Tigers averaged 5.1 yards a carry as they rushed 35 times for 180 yards. With freshman Isaiah Thomas sidelined by injury, Jay Preston ran for 32 yards, Vogt and Niles each had 29 and Venable gained 23.