New Utrecht football coach Alan Balkan wanted to go on the record with his opinion his team’s preformance against host Flushing last Friday.
“We were terrible,” he said. “You put that in the paper. We were awful. Awful.”
Balkan called the week leading up to the 27–0 loss the worst pregame preparation of the season. Players were missing practice and some were out with a flu bug that was going around the team.
The lack of prep showed when the Utes took the field. The New Utrecht team was twice stopped on fourth and goal from inside the Flushing 10-yard line. The second came with the ball at the two, and quarterback Richard Wright was pressured into a poor throw when Flushing’s Kevaun Dunn got through the line easily on a safety blitz.
It kept New Utrecht from cutting into a 14–0 Flushing lead with 9:00 left in the fourth quarter. The game just kept going downhill from there as Wright was intercepted three times after that. The first set up a 78-yard touchdown run by Red Devils star back DeAndre Lomax-Ross (16 carries, 176 yards), who eluded New Utrecht tackles all game, and the second was returned 65 yards for a score by Dunn to provide the final margin in the Utes’ Public School Athletic League City conference loss.
Balkan is unsure of the team’s situation at quarterback moving forward. Sophomore Angelo Carrera began the season under center, but missed last week’s loss to Abraham Lincoln after getting injured against Susan Wagner. He played sparingly against Flushing (4–1), but now Wright is banged up as well.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Balkan said. “We could put another quarterback in next week.”
Things didn’t really get away from New Utrecht (3–2) until the fourth quarter. Flushing got a 4-yard touchdown run from Lomax-Ross on its opening drive. The Red Devils didn’t score again until a 28-yard touchdown pass from Terrene Chavis to Adam Singleton with 6:48 to go in the third. Wright completed 10 of 17 passes for 137 yards, but couldn’t get his team in the end zone.
New Utrecht will try getting back in the win column this week against Jefferson by not repeating the mistakes leading up to the loss to Flushing.
“It shows on the field on a game day,” Balkan. “They were prepared. We weren’t. Bottom line.”
