Westchester Eagerly Awaits Football Openers

When Irene’s heavy rains and strong winds were bearing down on Westchester last weekend, the last thing on Rob Lombardo’s mind was football.

That may be surprising since he’s the president of Somers High School’s Football Boosters Club.

But as the hours turned to days, and with many of his neighbors without power but having mostly escaped serious property damage, Lombardo found the prospect of the high school football season starting was a good thing.

“When you go through something like that (Irene), it helps takes people’s minds off of it,” said Lombardo, whose son Joey, is a junior starting fullback/linebacker for the Tuskers’ varsity team, and whose other two sons, Rob and Anthony, also starred at Somers. “It brings the community together.”

High school teams through Westchester are eagerly anticipating the opening-day games set for this coming weekend. Somers hosts Rye on Friday, Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. in a rematch of a Class A quarterfinal playoff game last season won by Somers.

In other games Friday at 7 p.m., John Jay hosts Ossining, Lakeland visits Harrison, Sleepy Hollow plays at Pelham and Pleasantville visits Putnam Valley.

Also Friday night, Yorktown, which is coming off a 7-2 season, marks its return to Class AA with a home game against Mount Vernon at 7 o'clock.

“Moving up to AA is hard, but all of the coaches and all the players have adjusted well to it,” Yorktown junior quarterback Nick Mariano said. “I think we look pretty good. We just have to play very hard and never take a down off. Mount Vernon plays hard and is very athletic.”

The slate on Saturday, Sept. 10 is highlighted by these 1:30 p.m. games: Fox Lane at New Rochelle, Bronxville at Dobbs Ferry, Roosevelt at Greeley and Briarcliff at Irvington.

Though the outcome of the Friday night Mount Vernon-Yorktown game remains to be seen, Mariano came away ahead after last weekend’s storm struck.

“Fortunately, I was one of the lucky ones who had power throughout the storm and this past week,” he said. “But I really think every player who didn’t have power coped really well with it and came to practice ready to play football.”

 

Joe Lombardi's look at sports of all sorts in Westchester appears on Sundays.

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