STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Kelli Cutinella has attended almost every Shoreham-Wading River game this season, no matter how hard it has been to watch these last two months.
Cutinella is the mother of junior Tom Cutinella, a linebacker/offensive lineman who died hours after a collision with an opposing player Oct. 1.
She kept coming to the games because she wanted to support his football dreams and felt his presence there — in the huddle with his teammates, in the stands with her.
Sunday, she was there at LaValle Stadium as Shoreham-Wading River captured its first Long Island (N.Y.) Division IV football championship with a 47-13 victory against Roosevelt High School.
“I knew that Tommy was here with them today,” she said after the game. “I kept praying to him. He used his angel wings today to make this team win. I’m very proud of them. Proud.
“It’s bittersweet.”
For the second consecutive playoff game, the Wildcats marched onto field with Cutinella in their hearts. Cutinella��s younger brother Kevin, an offensive lineman, and defensive tackle Jimmy Puckey held Tom’s No. 54 jersey while Hughes and fullback Aaron Harley-Rey held a blue banner emblazoned with the No. 54 in gold. The banner remained on a pole on the sideline.
During the pregame coin toss, Roosevelt presented the four Shoreham-Wading River captains and Cutinella, an honorary captain, a No. 54 Roosevelt jersey; no Rough Riders player wears that number.
“They were driven, without a doubt,” Kelli said of the Wildcats. “I’m proud of them.”
The Wildcats completed a season that Hollywood producers could not have scripted. They ended at 12-0 by overcoming an early 13-7 deficit in the title game,
RELATED: Why are high school players dying?
“We got through it together,” said quarterback Danny Hughes, who ran for three touchdowns and threw for another. “We’re a family. When that happens, it really showed. We came together every day. We were really with each other all hours of the day. It brought us close. It’s unfortunate it that took something like that to really bring us together. It did and that’s why we got through it.”
Playing as a guard in a Suffolk County Division IV game Oct. 1, Cutinella suffered an injury on a routine play with 3:51 remaining in the third quarter with SWR leading John Glenn/Elwood High School 17-12.
Running Chris Rosati took a handoff from Hughes and ran five yards for a first down. Cutinella, a junior in his first varsity season, went to block a player and a collision occurred.
He never got up. Cutinella was taken to Huntington Hospital and was declared dead later that night to the shock of his teammates and the community. Cutinella was the third high school player to die around the nation in a span of four days.
Some teams would have decided not to play the rest of the season. The Wildcats voted to play on.
In their perfect season, they outscored their opposition by exactly 400 points, 459-59 behind an imposing attack and crushing defense.
“It’s going to take some time. We’re going to need some perspective over a couple of weeks or a month or so to look back and say, ‘wow,’ ” coach Matthew Millheiser said. “It was a community-wide effort. It wasn’t one coach, it wasn’t one player.
“From the strength the Cutinella family has shown throughout this whole thing, to the parents to the players to the school, everybody pitched in. I couldn’t be happier for the boys.”
RELATED: The passing of Tom Cutinella
The game ended on a down note as Roosevelt was assessed an unsportsmanlike penalty with 29 seconds remaining as the game was stopped there.
After the game, Roosevelt coach Joe Vito apologized and told SWR that “We wear 54 also. We’re very happy for you. What a wonderful program.”
Faced with a 13-7 first-quarter deficit against a very good Roosevelt team, SWR wasn’t concerned about the hole. What it has experienced this season made the team stronger.
“There’s no situation that could put more stress on you than that,” Hughes said. “I don’t know how to explain it. It really prepared us for anything. We knew there was no thing we couldn’t handle after that. We handled the biggest punch that anybody could throw us. So anything from that point on we knew we could handle.”
SWR rattled off 40 consecutive points. Hughes scored two touchdowns and running back Irseal Squires added two, including a spectacular 80-yard pass and run from Hughes that gave the Wildcats a 27-13 advantage with 50 seconds remaining in the opening half.
The Wildcats found a way to contain senior running back Shamari Kirkpatrick, who entered the game with 2,244 rushing yards and 30 TDs. They “held” him to 135 yards in 26 carries and no TDs to close out a remarkable season.
“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” Hughes said. ‘It’s something that i believed we were going to do at the beginning of the season. i know our locker room did. I’m not sure how many other people did.
We were on a mission to prove them wrong if they didn’t believe in us. It just feels great.”
