PSAL SEMIS

Lehman26

Canarsie8

Mike Camardese told his Canarsie team all week that it couldn’t afford to make mistakes against an undefeated Lehman squad. The Lions, he said, were too good for that.

Unfortunately for Camardese, he was prophetic. Canarsie stumbled around throughout the first half and Lehman, playing up to its reputation, capitalized.

The second-seeded Lions took a 26-0 lead at the half and rolled to a 26-8 win over No. 3 Canarsie yesterday at Clinton in a PSAL semifinal. The outcome set up a meeting in the title game with top-seeded Sheepshead Bay. They will play noon Sunday at Midwood Field.

“We made every mistake possible in the first half,” Camardese said after his team finished 9-2. “We knew we couldn’t do anything wrong and beat them and we did plenty wrong. They ripped us.”

Canarsie presented Lehman with numerous chances and the Lions (10-0) wasted no time cashing in.

“I didn’t expect to dominate like we did,” said Akeen Watson, who returned a punt for a touchdown for the second week in a row. “At the half, we had an idea that it was over, but we didn’t want to get too confident.”

It would have been hard not to. Eliezer Rivera gave Lehman a 6-0 lead on the game’s opening drive with a six-yard run. Two possessions later, the Chiefs seemed ready to tie the score, but when they went for it on 4th-and-12 from Lehman’s 19, Matt King stopped Kendell Wilson for a six-yard loss. Lehman took over and on the next play, Courtney Mitchell raced 75 yards to make the score 12-0.

Canarsie’s next possession wasn’t any better. Jerry Duvervil was back to punt on fourth down. He caught a low snap and the referees determined that his knee was down when he caught it. Lehman got the ball at the Canarsie 39. On the third play, Rivera raced in from 22 yards. King’s conversion made it 20-0.

Finally, with just over a minute to go in the half, the Chiefs punted again. This time, they were called for holding. Watson took the next attempt 49 yards into the end zone and the Lions led 26-0.

“We wanted to get points on the board quickly,” said King, who had a pair of interceptions. “We wanted to establish control.”

LB Ian McSwain had five sacks and appeared to be in on every tackle, despite not knowing if he was going to play until yesterday morning because of the flu.

The Lions’ pair of defensive tackles, Leslie Bartholomew and Ernest Jones, erased any chance of a Chiefs running game, shutting down Kendell Wilson.

“The two tackles killed us,” Camardese said. “We couldn’t block them.”

Because of that – and three second half turnovers by Canarsie – Lehman will play in the championship game for the first time since losing to Curtis in double overtime in 1998.