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Roosevelt Football Falls At Dominant Westlake

MOUNT PLEASANT, N.Y. – The Roosevelt High School football team suffered its second brutal loss in as many weeks Saturday with a 47-12 drubbing at Westlake.

The Indians lost, 35-0, to Briarcliff in their season opener and followed that up with another rough performance, but Roosevelt coach Samuel Williams told his players after the game not to get down on themselves.

“It’s a game. It’s a game,” Williams said. “You’ve got to love this game. You’ve got to have fun when you play. … It doesn’t matter about the score. Winning or losing sometimes doesn’t determine a person’s character. If you stay focused, have fun, learn to love the game, you’ll come and compete. All you want to do is give your best. If you give me the best, then I accept that.”

The Wildcats jumped on Roosevelt early, particularly Dan Bassi, who scored the first two Westlake touchdowns and set up the third with a big gain, all of which occurred in the first quarter. Bassi shredded the Indians’ defense throughout the afternoon, including a 60-yard touchdown run in the first quarter that made it 14-0 in Westlake’s favor.

The rest of Westlake’s rushing attack did their share, as well. John Ray Policarpio broke free twice in the second quarter for a pair of rushing touchdowns. Quarterback Chris Gorman punched it in from third and inches in the first quarter a few plays after a big run by Bassi. And Jake Carpenter added another rushing score on Westlake’s first possession of the second half.

Williams said Roosevelt’s poor fundamentals helped Westlake run all over the field.

“You win the games two ways: blocking and tackling. And we didn’t tackle,” Williams said. “That’s what killed us right there. We didn’t tackle well. When we could break down and start tackling, we had plays for loss. But we didn’t tackle well.”

The second year head coach said his team has some positives on which to build and said the team will make some adjustments going forward.

“I think we’re going to start passing the ball a little bit more,” Williams said. “It seemed that we had some success at some of those plays. We’ve just to got break down and tackle and we kind of stomped ourselves in the foot, that’s all.”

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