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12/10/2016 11:00 PMThe East Haven football team came up a little shy of reaching the expectations set by second-year Head Coach Melvin Wells prior to the 2016 season, but the Yellowjackets still came away with a 5-5 record to give themselves at least .500 mark for the second consecutive campaign. It marks the first time in 15 years that the Yellowjackets have achieved that feat.
“We found an opportunity to come in and do good things to turn this program around. We went 5-5, which isn’t what we would’ve liked. We thought we’d be better, but the journey...and the will to compete every day was phenomenal and outstanding,” Coach Wells said. “I think we’re well on our way to doing some really good things. Looking at our sub-programs, JV was 5-2 and the freshman/sophomore group was 6-3, so again, for the second year, all three levels of the program experienced success. We feel like some really good things will happen here and I was really happy for the kids.”
Two of East Haven’s defeats were lopsided losses to Hand and Foran. Those are the types of games that Wells wants to have his team more prepared for as the program continues growing.
“This is a learned response. It’s not natural. One thing we have to continue to work on is consistently competing and expecting to be successful at all time,” he said. “What happens is there is no expectation for success. When we prepare, we want to prepare with an approach that we’re going to give it our best effort, opposed to the expectation of losing.”
The best part of the Yellowjackets’ season came in the home stretch as they prevailed in their final three games. East Haven won on the road against Guilford and McMahon and then topped Branford at home on Thanksgiving Day in a revenge effort dating back to last year, when the Hornets beat the Easties to prevent them from clinching a playoff berth. East Haven heavily won the turnover battle in those three victories to nearly break even in that category on the year. The Yellowjackets’ defense finished with 18 interceptions and five fumble recoveries.
East Haven played well on both offense and defense at times, although consistency was the concern, according to Wells, who felt the Yellowjackets weren’t necessarily clicking on all cylinders throughout the entire campaign. Wells added that the Easties’ effort was never in question.
“Our youth and inexperience killed us. In all, we averaged giving up 20-plus points per game and scored about 20-plus points per game. On both sides of the ball, that’s not enough. We could’ve done better than we did, and that’s first and foremost on me,” Wells said. “I thought our last three games were indicative of how we should’ve played. We played them all completely as there wasn’t a shortfall on offense, defense, or special teams. It all came together those last three games, but we need to play like that from Week 1 through Week 10—not Week 7 to Week 10. At the end of the day, both departments were working hard and nobody is taking a week off when East Haven is on the schedule anymore.”
East Haven’s leading player on defense was Niam Coward, who was an All-SCC Division II/III honoree with a team-high 143 tackles and nine sacks. Senior Corey Waselik was also named All-SCC for his performance on the offensive and defensive lines.
Offensively, senior Nate Lastomirsky completed 29 passes for 418 yards with a touchdown. He also ran for 250 yards and three scores. The Yellowjackets’ top offensive player was senior running back McClay Marshall, who made All-SCC as he rushed for 1,301 yards and nine touchdowns. He also gained 111 receiving yards and scored a TD, while adding 108 yards passing. More quality offensive yards came from senior Dominic Manna, who finished with 513 yards and seven scores on the ground. Lastomirsky, Andrew Luzzi, and Jose Campos were named to the Levi Jackson All-Star Team.
“When we had tough yards to get, he was more than willing to carry the football 15 to 20 times per game and do what we needed him to do to find success. Getting 1,300 yards in the SCC is not easy. I admired his toughness as he was our backbone in the running game,” Wells said of Marshall. “Nate spent an entire season putting us in a position to be successful. He didn’t do anything to hurt us and had a positive impact on everything we did. His biggest attribute was his maturity in the huddle and his ability to lead when things weren’t going well.”
One thing that Coach Wells is focusing on going forward is for the Yellowjackets to pull off a few more victories in their close contests after dropping three decisions by less than seven points this year.
“I know I need to do everything in my power so we’re on the upside of those games next year,” Wells said. “We have a nice opportunity and some young talent coming in that will do some really good stuff. It will be a shame if I didn’t allow that to happen, so I’m looking forward to the opportunity to do some good stuff. My coaches and I are really excited to work with them.”
• The seniors for East Haven this year were captains Niam Coward, McClay Marshall, and Jose Campos, as well as Tim Seksinski, Luis Torres, Paul DeMaio, Nate Lastomirsky, Dominic Manna, Latrell Dupree, Corey Waselik, Jonathan Escodo, Brandon Duryea, and Nico DeMaio.
• Wins for East Haven came against Sheehan (35-27), Lyman Hall (44-12), Guilford (23-15), McMahon (29-10), and Branford (14-0).
• East Haven took losses against Law (26-21), Hand (35-0), Hamden (30-24), Foran (31-7), and Creed-Career-Whitney (20-17).