Long way to go for Campus Magnet

As the fourth quarter slowly and mercifully ended, the Mission Impossible theme song started to play. Not even Tom Cruise would have been up to the task of stopping Curtis.
Campus Magnet certainly was not. They did not even slow down the high-powered Warriors in a 46-0 loss at home Saturday afternoon.
A week after a fourth-quarter collapse against Long Island City - the Bulldogs led 26-6 with seven minutes remaining - knocked them from the ranks of the unbeaten, the Cambria Heights school met Curtis, the Staten Island juggernaut who entered having scored no fewer than 44 points in each of their five dominant victories.
Still wobbly from their shocking loss the previous week, the Bulldogs absorbed considerable punishment from the Warriors, now 6-0, in what was one of the ugliest losses in school history. As a meeting with 7-0 Grand Street Campus looms, they will see if they are made of steel or straw.
“If we are [going to make] the playoffs,” quarterback Datalia Holness said, “everybody has to step up.”
One would not be able to tell by the final score, but Campus Magnet (4-2) played a solid first half. They trailed 12-0 late in the second quarter, and after a pair of long runs by Holness, had the ball at the Curtis 6-yard line. However, the drive stalled when Holness was rushed into an incompletion on fourth down.
Two possessions later, Curtis converted a 4th and 17, when Micklos Blake beat Holness on a 29-yard slant with 1:40 left. The play served as a backbreaker for the Bulldogs, who were shutout for the first time since November of 2005, and allowed the most points in Eric Barnett’s three years as coach.
“We weren’t playing as a team,” senior linebacker/wide receiver Stephan Benjamin said. “There were a lot of missed tackles. Some people got intimidated. There was a lot barking but no bite.”
Prior to the LIC setback, the Bulldogs did indeed talk. They were looking ahead to the Curtis showdown. Many of their players, in addition to Barnett, remembered beating Staten Island Pop Warner teams when they were members of the Springfield Rifles.
This, obviously, was different.
Campus Magnet had no answer for the Warriors’ size on either side of the ball or their dynamic quarterback, Dominick Le Grande, who missed on just four passes and threw for 217 yards and four touchdowns. The Curtis ground game was not too shabby, either. The Warriors ripped off 225 yards on the ground, including two scores from Naykwan Johnson and a team-high 84 yards from Le Grande. Campus Magnet, by contrast, accumulated just 175 yards of offense.
“A lot of these kids saw what the beast is,” Barnett said.
In his third, and by far most important season, this is a crossroads for Barnett and his players. Each fall has been a progression. They won twice two years ago, five times last year and made it to the Bowl Division playoffs. This season, they all pointed to a spot in the 16-team playoffs, and after starting out 4-0, it seemed in their grasp. However, two losses later - one a shocking upset and the other an abject demolishment - and an imminent visit to another city power in Grand Street, the Bulldogs must regroup quickly.
In that vein, Barnett is trying to get his players to wash the last two weeks from their collective memory.
“Grand Street, Grand Street, Grand Street,” he repeated in their on field, post-game talk. “This is over. We have had two tough games in a row. I need commitment and focus. Forget it. We’re 4-2, not 2-4.”
“We’ll learn a lot about our team,” Barnett later added.