Longwood 20, Ward Melville 14: Jeff Liggon scored on a 2-yard run and ran in a two-point conversion with 2:46 left in the game to give Longwoodto the win. Liggon, whose touchdown capped an eight-play, 70-yard drive, finished with 128 yards on 21 carries. LONGWOOD 0 0 6 14 20 WARD MELVILLE 0 0 7 7 14
WM – Sanders 12 run (Heck kick)
L – Willis 22 run (kick failed)
WM – Sanders 16 run (Heck kick)
L – Murphy 32 pass from Willis (run failed)
L – Liggon 2 run (Liggon run)
Longwood’s Drought Ends: [SUFFOLK Edition]
Newsday, Combined editions; Long Island, N.Y. [Long Island, N.Y]. 29 Sep 1991:
Jeffrey Liggon rushed for 162 yards and three touchdowns on 18 carries as Longwood won its first League I football game since Oct. 7, 1989 – a span of eight regular-season contests – 29-0 over Brentwood. Longwood quarterback Greg Willis connected with Dave Murphy on a 29-yard scoring pass, capping a 70-yard drive, five minutes into the game to give Longwood a 7-0 lead. Longwood linebacker Elrich Williams made six solo tackles and two sacks. Brentwood reached the Longwood 10 on its first possession of the second half, but turned the ball over on downs. BRENTWOOD 0 0 0 0 0 LONGWOOD 16 7 0 6 29
L – Murphy 29 pass from Willis (Mullaly kick)
L – Liggon 3 run (Mullaly kick) L – Safety (Birt tackled in end zone)
L – Liggon 79 run (Mullaly kick)
L – Liggon 6 run (kick failed)
Another Heart-Stopper Patchogue-Medford barely holds off Longwood: [SUFFOLK Edition]
By John Valenti. STAFF WRITER. Newsday, Combined editions; Long Island, N.Y. [Long Island, N.Y]. 06 Oct 1991
This time, there was no need for a last-minute touchdown. And this time, there was no need for Jason Wing to run one back or for Matt Krawczyk to engineer a game-winning drive. But that isn’t to say this one was easy – or, even, without drama. It wasn’t.
“I don’t think I could survive many more of these,” Patchogue-Medford coach Bob Reifsnyder said after his team turned back Longwood, 13-8, yesterday in a League I game.
Who could blame him? A year ago, Reifsnyder and his team had seen a 31-13 halftime lead evaporate against Longwood, falling behind 34-31 with 38 seconds left before Wing returned the ensuing kickoff for a 78-yard touchdown to save the day.
But yesterday, Wing, on crutches and his fractured left leg in a thigh-length cast, could only stand on the sidelines and watch. And Krawczyk, the junior quarterback who engineered a game-winning 10-play, 70-yard touchdown drive in the final two minutes of a 23-22 victory last week against Smithtown, could only hope he and his teammates could find a way to stop Longwood at Patchogue-Medford.
Behind 13-8, Longwood had moved from its own 20 to the Patchogue-Medford 21 with 1:44 left. On first down, quarterback Greg Willis threw an incomplete pass. On second down, he nearly fumbled under pressure and lost 8 yards. On third down, Willis overthrew his receiver.
So, it all came down to one play. With 44 seconds left, Willis rolled out of the pocket and saw Anthony Filippi in the end zone. He lofted the ball and Filippi broke toward the right corner. Randy Ward went with him. As the ball arrived, so did Ward. He batted it away with 36 seconds left to preserve Patchogue-Medford’s homecoming victory. The win lifted the Raiders to 2-1, 2-0, and first place in League I. Longwood fell to 2-1, 1-1.
“Last week, we pulled one out of our hat, and we were grateful for that,” said Patchogue-Medford tight end / defensive end Mike Hansen, who had a 7-yard touchdown reception in the first quarter and a 3-yard touchdown catch in the second as the Raiders took a 13-0 halftime lead behind Krawczyk, who went 15-for-26 for 169 yards. “We didn’t want it to come down to that again. But we knew what we had to do. We had to stop them.”
“We just didn’t get it done,” Longwood coach John Westberg said. “We got in a hole and that hurt us. We had our opportunities, but we didn’t capitalize when we had the chance.”
Four times, twice in each half, Longwood moved inside the 20. And, that doesn’t count the final possession – when it moved to the Patchogue-Medford 21. It also didn’t count for much, because the Lions repeatedly found themselves boxed-in when they moved into scoring position. They made mistakes; they faltered; and they came up empty.
Behind 7-0 in the first quarter, Longwood drove from its own 16 to the Patchogue-Medford 3. But with the ball at the 3-yard line, running back Jeff Liggon was stuck by Anthony Giugliano for a 3-yard loss. On the next play, Willis was stripped by Hansen and a scramble for the loose ball ended when Liggon fell on it for a 25-yard loss.
After the Raiders answered with a 65-yard drive to take a 13-0 lead with 10:49 left in the first half, Longwood moved to the 18-yard line before Willis fell as he dropped back to pass on second down and then threw two incompletions. In fact, Longwood needed four downs inside the 10 before Liggon hurdled the line on fourth-and-goal from inside the 1 to score with 10:49 left. A conversion pass from Willis to Liggon cut the margin to 13-8.
Longwood stopped Patchogue-Medford on three consecutive plays after the Raiders had driven to the 5 with seven minutes left, then got a stay of execution when Jon Fechter sent a 24-yard field-goal attempt wide left with 6:13 remaining. But the Lions could not find a way to win. “Last year was hell for us, the way we lost. This year, we thought we had a chance; we thought we were going to win,” Willis said. “But we missed blocks, made a lot of mistakes, didn’t take advantage of our opportunities. We had the ball four times inside the 20. How can you not win?”
“To have a good shot at {the league championship} we needed to win this game,” Reifsnyder said. “Our kids could have folded, but they hung tough and we won. This was a big win for us.”
Perhaps not as dramatic as a last-second touchdown. Perhaps not as dramatic as a last-minute kickoff return.
But important, nevertheless. LONGWOOD 0 0 0 8 8 PATCHOGUE-MEDFORD 7 6 0 0 13
P-M – Hansen 7 pass from Krawczyk (Fechter kick)
P-M – Hansen 3 pass from Krawczyk (kick failed)
L – Liggon 1 run (Liggon pass from Willis)
Longwood 38, Smithtown 8: Jeff Liggon rushed for 113 yards on 11 carries and scored two touchdowns to lead Longwood (2-2). The Lions’ offense totaled 400 yards and scored on all but one possession in the first three quarters. Longwood‘s secondary of David Murphy, Anthony Filippi and Duane Thompson combined for 18 tackles. – Oct. 21
SMITHTOWN 0 8 0 0 8 LONGWOOD 13 13 12 0 38
L – Doepp 26 pass from Willis (Mullaly kick)
L – Volpe 3 run (pass failed)
L – Volpe 2 run (Mullaly kick)
S – Gagliene 12 pass from DeRosa (DeRosa run)
L – Liggon 62 run (kick failed)
L – Liggon 3 run (kick failed)
L – Rueter 6 run (kick failed)
Longwood 44, Floyd 34: Longwood linebacker Anthony Felippi broke up a two-point conversion pass with five minutes left after Floyd closed to within 36-34. On its ensuing possession, Longwood drove 60 yards in nine plays, capped by David Murphy’s 8-yard scoring run with 2:40 left. Jeff Liggon had 140 yards on 48 carries as Longwood rushed for 420 yards. Longwood, which trailed 14-0 in the second quarter, went ahead to stay 20-14 on Murphy’s 48-yard scoring run four minutes into the third quarter. LONGWOOD 0 14 22 8 44 FLOYD 14 0 14 6 34 – Oct 27
F – Lincoln 1 run (Bell kick)
F – Lincoln 22 run (Bell kick)
L – Doepp 25 pass from Willis (pass failed)
L – Volpe 3 run (Liggon run)
L – Murphy 48 run (Liggon run)
L – Liggon 58 run (Liggon run)
F – Triolo 16 run (Muldoon pass from Triolo)
L – Volpe 4 run (run failed)
F – Thomas 4 run (run failed)
F – Muldoon 25 pass from Triolo (pass failed)
L – Murphy 8 run (Liggon run)
Copiague 35, Longwood 8: Anthony DiIeso ran for 206 yards on 13 carries and scored three touchdowns to finish the season with 1,346 yards, according to coach Ben Bonaventura. DiIeso, who had scoring runs of 24, 80, and 55 yards, finished the season with 14 touchdowns. Linebackers Milton Bond made 11 tackles and James Avritte 13 tackles for Copiague. Longwood‘s Jeff Liggon also went over the 1,000-yard mark, gaining 1,107, according to a Longwood coach. Nov. 10
COPIAGUE-7-14-6-8-35-LONGWOOD-0-0-8-0-8-
C – DiIeso 24 run (Campbell kick)
C – DiIeso 80 run (Sayevich pass to Hassel)
C – Hassel 1 run (kick failed)
C – DiIeso 55 run (run failed)
L – Liggons 20 run (run failed)
C – Smith 2 run (Smith run)
AT LOOK AT THE LOCALS Liggon Turns Life Around:
Hahn, Alan. Newsday, Combined editions; Long Island, N.Y. [Long Island, N.Y]. 11 Sep 1995
Consider the fact that Jeff Liggon grew up among the ignored poverty demographic of Long Island. His stepfather murdered his mother, Adell Mae Parker, when he was barely 14 years old. He then moved to Riverhead with his father, a man he hardly knew.
“When I first moved in with my dad,” Liggon recalls, “I was a bad kid. I didn’t care about anything or anyone. I didn’t know respect.”
Today Jeff Liggon is a star wide receiver and kick return specialist for Tulane. In a 35-9 win over Wake Forest on Saturday, the 5-10, 188-pound third-year senior gained 34 yards on three catches and returned one kick for 15 yards.
Last season, he broke an NCAA Division I-A record with 1,038 kickoff return yards. But statistics and numbers don’t mean a thing to Liggon. Success is the object of his desire – and his driving force.
Hard work is a trait he learned from his dad.
“He was out of it,” James Liggon said of his son’s condition after the tragic death of his mother. “So I put him in everything. I just kept him busy.” The young Liggon’s busy schedule included karate and art classes and laboring in the family landscaping business.
He developed an interest in football after seeing his younger brother Carl play in the Riverhead Police Athletic League. It grew to a passion when he saw his first high school game at the age of 14.
“I used to go over by the gate at the Riverhead football field and watch the games,” Liggon said. “Every five minutes I would hear {former Riverhead All-County tailback} Carl Smith’s name. He was great. Since then, I wanted to be a great football player.”
A few years later, Smith became an All-America running back at the University of Maine. The Liggon family moved to Coram and Jeff attended Longwood, where he became an All-County football and track star. He also was involved in student government and participated in the school’s “Just Say No” program.
Liggon was beginning to find peace with himself, with his father and with the world. “I was starting to realize I had to learn to control my anger,” he said. “The death of my mother took a couple of years to accept.”
The days of tough love long past, his father now beams with admiration for a son who has overcome so much in his young life. “I’m so proud of him. He has learned from some tough times,” the elder Liggon said. And the hard education of life has made college studies somewhat easier for his son to handle.
In school, Liggon started out with a concentration in exercise science and decided to add sociology as a second major. He is scheduled to graduate on time in June of ’96 and plans to study physical training after his football career is over.
“You have to put yourself into a position where you will have a lot of opportunities,” he said. “If something doesn’t work out for you, you always have other options.”
At one time, he didn’t have many options. But now the opportunities are endless.