Crushed Commodores

It was only two years ago that Bayside ruled the borough and was respected throughout the city, when, led by a group of seniors, they upset South Shore in the first round of the playoffs and nearly did the same to Lehman, the top seed at the time.
It just feels a whole lot longer.
After absorbing a 32-0 whipping at the hands of Lincoln, Bayside has played 16 games since the end of the 2005 season and won just three of them.
Injuries are mounting - starting fullback/linebacker Michael Humphries and top linebacker Luis Romero are done for the year - starting running back Herbert Sheppard is off the team because of school-related issues, and there are no playmakers, once a Bayside staple, on either side of the ball.
“If we were healthy, we would have two more wins,” Coach Jason Levitt said. “From top to bottom, we are not as good as were two years ago, but we have very talented players.”
Perhaps, but this was by far their worst performance to date. Of their five losses, four of them came to teams - JFK of the Bronx, Staten Island’s New Dorp and Curtis, and Brooklyn Midwood - that should qualify for the playoffs.
“I thought we were going to win,” Levitt said. “We had a very good week of practice, a very focused week, a very hard-hitting week, and then all these missed assignments, I don’t know where they came from. I don’t know what that was.”
In his first year at the helm, Levitt didn’t have many answers. When he spoke to his players under the home goal post, he recited the famous Don Shula quote: “The superior man blames himself. The inferior man blames others.”
He followed that with this week’s motto: Dedication. They will likely need more than a few spirited practices to upset Canarsie next Saturday, one of the best teams in the city.
Bayside couldn’t even hang with the two-win Railsplitters. Mistakes were everywhere. From punt returner Kareem Omar fumbling a punt after it rolled 20 yards to his own 5-yard line, to blown coverages, to missed assignments, enabling Lincoln blitzers to treat quarterback Damir Dukanovic like a punching bag all afternoon. Dukanovic was sacked four times, threw three interceptions, fumbled once, and completed just three passes for 51 yards.
“They,” Levitt said, “just beat us up.”
When Levitt took over, he wasn’t under the assumption the program was stocked with top-shelf talent, the way it was when he first arrived as an offensive coordinator in 2003. After the 2005 season, 20 seniors graduated, a group of players that had reestablished Bayside as one of the best in the city.
Those replacing them can’t even sniff such accomplishments. Levitt lauded the type of young men he is coaching this season; how hard they work, their focus day-to-day and week-to-week, but the results on the field are not there.
“Losing record, I don’t feel too good,” junior linebacker Jason Munnerlyn said. “I just want us to do better, to win some games.”
Munnerlyn and fellow linebacker Dwayne Brown said several of their teammates made the egregious error of looking past Lincoln. They saw their opponent had just one win entering the contest, and figured a victory would follow.
“You have to take everyone seriously,” Brown said.
Before sending his players back to the locker room, Levitt did his best to draw out their sense of pride and tradition. He harkened back to the last time the Commodores faced Canarsie: September 18, 2004.
“Bayside-14, Canarise-9,” he told them.
It’s only a little more than three years and a month since that day, but unfortunately for Bayside, the past and the present couldn’t be any more different.