Roslyn celebrates annual homecoming

Bill San Antonio

The Roslyn School District community on Saturday celebrated its annual homecoming festivities with a pancake breakfast in the Roslyn High School cafeteria, a parade through the Village of Roslyn and its varsity football team’s 22-14 comeback win over Long Island Lutheran.

“It’s one of those unique opportunities where the school district and community can rally together,” said Roslyn Superintendent of Schools Dan Brenner. “It’s nothing but a good news moment where we showcase our kids and it’s a day to smile about. We were fortunate enough to have beautiful weather and all our groups were out selling their wear, and we were fortunate enough to have a football team that won and two soccer teams that competed at a high level. It was a great Saturday of activities.” 

After a breakfast attended by Roslyn faculty, students and their parents, the Roslyn High School colorguard, dance team and award-winning marching band lined up outside the front of the school to lead the community in a parade through the Village of Roslyn, up to the clock tower and back in time for the start of the varsity football game. 

During the breakfast and throughout the afternoon, Laura Smith Rosenberg and Tisha Noyola helped raise funds on behalf of the grassroots group Friends of the Horse Tamer, which is working toward restoring the Roslyn School District-owned horse tamer statue taken from the former Mackay estate at Harbor Hill. 

According to Friends of the Horse Tamer officials, more than $61,000 has been raised toward the organization’s $100,000 goal.

During the afternoon, other school district committees sold Roslyn Bulldogs apparel and raised funds for other initiatives. The school district also unveiled its new field house, a project that had been completed over the summer.

A pregame ceremony honored the team’s senior players, Isiah Hunter, Chris Snipes, Jordan Fishbach, Alex Epprecht, Brian Rogofsky, Tyler Takvor, Danny Gould, Michael Surace and Carlos Brown, who were each presented with a white rose and marched out to midfield with their parents. 

“Homecoming was great,” said Mike Corcoran, Roslyn varsity football coach. “We had a packed house and the kids were very excited to have so many people there to see them pull out a win and come back and get two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. It gave us a feeling of tremendous satisfaction.”

Long Island Lutheran led deep into the game, but with 1:15 remaining in the fourth quarter, Bulldogs quarterback Adam Combs connected on a game-winning 27-yard touchdown pass to Hunter that preserved Roslyn’s 3-0 record. 

Combs went 5-for-9 for 89 yards and three touchdowns, while Hunter finished with two catches for 53 yards and two touchdowns. 

“As a coach, I try to keep them concentrating on the game itself, though obviously they have a lot of distractions going on being that it is homecoming and they had a pep rally the day before and the senior thing with their parents before the game,” Corcoran. “So for them all that outside periphery takes away from their attention, and as a coach I’m trying to get them to focus on football once the game started. We’ve got to play a game of football here, and it took us a little while to get back into football mode, but once we did that it was a lot better.”

At halftime, the marching band, colorguard and dance team performed a medley of songs from “The Sound of Music.” 

“It all starts with the parade and the marching band and it’s another great moment for the community to see the hard work of 100-plus kids and their advisors to put together this award-winning marching band,” Brenner said. “It’s just a great day.”

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