The Nassau County Conference I football championship will go through Oceanside.
The Sailors capped a perfect regular season and secured the No. 1 playoff seed and home-field advantage with a 42-34 victory over previously unbeaten Massapequa last Saturday afternoon. Junior quarterback Charlie McKee threw for 291 yards and four touchdowns, including three to junior Michael Mecca, and sealed the outcome with a 2-yard scoring run with just under two minutes remaining.
The Chiefs, who trailed by as many as 21, managed a late touchdown to make it a one-possession game but had their last-minute kickoff roll out of bounds and Oceanside (6-0) ran out the clock to set up a semifinal meeting with No. 4 Syosset this Friday at 6 p.m. Massapequa hosts East Meadow in the other semifinal.
“Massapequa is a dangerous team and we had to keep our foot on the gas,” Sailors head coach Rob Blount said. “We had a nice opening drive to set the tone and I thought we did a great job executing on offense all day. We’re excited to lock up home field for the playoffs and maybe we’ll see Massapequa again.”
Oceanside’s game-opening drive covered 87 yards and ate up the first 7:26 of the first quarter. McKee found junior Nick Ebel on a quick corner route for a 7-yard touchdown and it was 7-0 after senior kicker Joe Briguglio’s first of six straight successful extra points. It was the 60th career TD pass for McKee, who earlier in the campaign became the program’s all-time leader in the category.