Luis Rodriguez was living the dream while handing Grand Street a nightmare.
The Abraham Lincoln receiver helped his team to stave off an upset when he caught a slant over the middle from Paul Litvack and ran it 75 yards for a touchdown with 2:02 remaining in the game.
The Railsplitters’ longest offense play of the night turned a five-point deficit into a thrilling 21–18 victory in front an energetic crowd of more than 1,000 at Aviator Sports Complex in Public School Athletic League football last Friday night.
“That’s the best moment of my life,” Rodriguez said his final score. “Knowing the stakes of the game, being down a couple points with less than two minutes left in the game. To be the one catching that game-winning touchdown, that is the greatest moment ever. That’s something you can only dream of.”
Rodriguez caught two passes for 108 yards and added 61 yards and a score on the ground to help Lincoln win its 17th-straight game.
“We said at halftime we are going to come out and we are going to get the ball in Luis’s hands,” said Lincoln coach Shawn O’Connor. “He’s our guy.”
The big performance came in one of the biggest games of the year so far. Both teams were unbeaten and Grand Street was looking to prove it could play with the defending city champions. There was plenty of trash talking before and during a contest that lived up to anyone’s expectations.
“We knew it wasn’t going to be an easy game,” said Railsplitters defensive end Jordan Nicholson. “We were like, ‘we were going to go out here, fight, battle and let them know who owns Brooklyn.’ ”
Nicholson did more than his share to ensure it was his team that earned bragging rights. Nicholson tackled Wolves running back Rahmel Ashby for a loss on third down to get Lincoln the ball back with a chance to take the lead on its final drive. He later tipped Justin White’s final two passes with Grand Street working from the Railsplitters’ 41-yard-line in the closing seconds.
“He came up big when we needed him,” O’Connor said.
Grand Street (3–1) retook the lead when White connected with Taysir Mack from 11-yard yards out for their second touchdown of the game with 7:54 remaining in the contest to make it 13–12. White completed 11 of 19 passes for 181 yards and Mack had four grabs for 44 yards.
“He’s amazing,” Grand Street coach Bruce Eugene said of Mack.
His club gained momentum early when Justin Phillip recovered a fumble on the opening kickoff to set up an eventual 10-yard scoring run by Eugene Qualls. Lincoln (4–0) immediately answered with a 2-yard rushing score from Rodriguez to knot things up at 6–6.
A 41-yard kick off return from Alex Badine Jr. helped the Wolves get into the end zone three plays later as White connected with Mack for a 10-yard score to give their team a 12–6 lead with 3:59 left on the first quarter. That was the last score allowed by Lincoln until the fourth quarter. The Railsplitters got a third-quarter rushing touchdown from backup quarterback O’Neill Rogett.
Grand Street, which committed three costly unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, was still in position to win, but couldn’t grab the victory. Eugene believes his team earned respect against a fellow elite squad. Now they just have to learn how to beat one. He hopes for another crack at the Railsplitters in the postseason.
“We can play with anybody, any place, anywhere,” Eugene said. “We’ll be back. We’ll see them later. You can rest assured we will see them again.”
