By Scott Stump – Senior Editor
(Corrected with info on 1989 snowout between RBC and RFH)
With Lacey’s 37-0 win over Central in the books to conclude the Thanksgiving action and conclude the season for all but eight Shore Conference teams, let’s get to a few tidbits.
Obviously, the No. 1 topic of discussion right now is Rumson-Fair Haven coach Shane Fallon’s decision to sit his starters, which resulted in a 61-0 rout at the hands of Red Bank Catholic on Friday night in their annual game. I was getting scoring updates while I was at the Toms River North-Toms River East game, and all I could think was, ”This is going to be really bad tomorrow.”
First off, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a Red Bank Catholic graduate and have either covered or attended this annual game for a long time. With that out of the way, I’ll say that I disagree with Fallon’s decision. I knew it was coming and I could see his reasoning for not wanting to risk any of his starters getting hurt with the Central Jersey Group II final against Carteret coming up next Sunday at Rutgers, but it was not a good idea in my opinion because it clearly devalued the game and took away a chance for Rumson’s seniors to get their first win over RBC in their varsity careers. Just play them for a half and move on if RBC is winning handily or you’re worried someone will get hurt.
I spoke with a former head coach who faced this exact situation where he had a rivalry game preceding a state sectional final game, and he said his plan was to play his starters for at least a half, and if they got behind by a couple scores or the other team was viciously blitzing or trying to injure one of his key players, he would take them out. (His team lost the game). He made a good point when he said that Fallon’s decision “made it awkward for everyone involved.”
For instance, RBC coach Frank Edgerly was criticized for leaving his starters in to pound on Rumson’s jayvee players and run the score up to 61-0, but Edgerly was in a tough spot. Either he only lets the seniors see sparing playing time in their final high school game, or he looks bad for running up the score. It’s pretty much a lose-lose situation, although it seemed like the thing to do was to take them out after a half or so. Again, that’s some Monday-morning quarterbacking by me, but they shouldn’t have stayed in until late in the game. However, I can certainly see the other side to that argument, but I’m sure there were some nervous Rumson parents of the jayvee players who were getting manhandled physically.
I also heard from a few people that there was also some jawing out of frustration from the RBC players to the Rumson starters on the sidelines, and some talking by Rumson’s players. Rumson’s players obviously must have supported the decision of the coaching staff, because if they really wanted to play, they would have been kicking and screaming until they got their way.
Fallon basically needs to have the Bulldogs beat Carteret to make some of this go away, and it didn’t help his cause that all seven of the other Shore Conference teams playing in state sectional finals put their starters in for at least a half in their Thanksgiving games. Three teams (Long Branch, Keansburg and Toms River North) were playing to wrap up division titles, so there were more stakes involved than there were for Rumson’s nondivisional game against the Caseys, and the other teams were all favorites in their games.
One team that was in a similar situation to Rumson was division rival Asbury Park, which is playing Keansburg on Friday in the Central Jersey Group I final and faced Neptune on Thanksgiving. Neptune came in with a winning record and has a win over RBC to its credit as well as the Shore’s leading rusher, Michael Peavy, so the Bishops could have decided to let the Scarlet Fliers take a nondivisional game that didn’t mean the world in the scheme of things. Instead, they embraced the challenge, shut down Peavy and won 26-3 over their long-time rival.
Rumson’s decision allows RBC to forever say that Rumson was ducking the Caseys and didn’t want to lose to them at full strength heading into a state sectional final. On the other hand, if Rumson quarterback Matt Wassel gets his knee smashed in by RBC and can’t play against Carteret, then Fallon is an ***** for putting him out there. Still, it’s a football game, and seven other teams didn’t seem to have a problem putting their stars out there for at least a little bit. Even Keansburg head coach Brian Kmak put star senior Justin Laguna in for one carry against winless Mater Dei in Laguna’s first game back since a fractured fibula sidelined him for three games, although Kmak joked afterward that he would’ve been “fired on the spot” if Laguna had somehow gotten re-injured.
Having seen some rustiness on the part of Toms River East against Toms River North thanks to a two-week layoff before playing the Mariners, I hope that the Bulldogs are able to stay sharp, particularly in an offense heavily based on timing passing routes and precision rather than brute strength. They could be the victim of Colorado Rockies syndrome, where a long layoff means a slow start that they never recover from.
Plus, having talked to a few different people about this, it really ticked off the alumni on both sides, which is never a good idea for a head coach. Rumson’s decision basically declared a game that has been going on for more than 50 years to be absolutely meaningless. In the overall scheme of things this year, that may have been somewhat true, but not to players who grow up waiting to play in that game and fans that come back to watch it and remember when they were in school.
Again, I can see Fallon’s reasoning and the feeling that the school’s first state sectional championship is way better than beating RBC, but a loss to Carteret and the pitchforks and torches may come out. Carteret played its starters for a half against Perth Amboy, by the way, so the Ramblers got some real playing time heading into this game.
I originally thought that Edgerly and Fallon played against each other in this game and participated as players, but I stand corrected from my original paragraph here. The wrinkle is that Fallon and Edgerly were supposed to play in the RFH-RBC game against one another as senior quarterbacks of their respective schools in 1989, but the game got snowed out and was never played because Rumson had a state final coming up. That also was the only other year Rumson has been in a state sectional final, and RBC was the Class B North champ that year – this year the Caseys shared a part of the Liberty Division title.
Now Rumson has to follow Al Davis’ slogan and just win, baby. Winning solves everything, although if the Bulldogs take down Carteret, you know half or 3/4 of the questions will be about the RBC game rather than their school-history-making achievement, which kind of stinks. It’s like the Red Sox trying to talk about winning the World Series and getting asked instead if they are going to pursue A-Rod after he announced that he was opting out of his contract.
If anything, it’s given sportswriters plenty of fodder leading up to the game, and I’m never against that. Also, it raises the question of where Rumson should be ranked after this. Do the Bulldogs get a pass because they didn’t use their starters? Do they plummet because they chose not to try and basically participated in a two-hour forfeit? You’ll see when the new Top 10 comes out.
Rumson obviously could care less about subjective rankings for its part, but now it’s all-or-nothing when it comes to bringing home the hardware. This will either foster an “us against the world” deal or be viewed as a bad decision a week from now in my view. I hope the Bulldogs bring it home because I like to see all Shore Conference teams do well, and their seniors in particular have really brought this program to a new level. If they win, you’ve got to wonder if other teams might tank their rivalry games in the coming years, although my guess is a resounding no. The whole thing has just left a bad feeling among all involved and among the fans.
OK, after all that, I’m pretty sure that there were some other games played over Thanksgiving, so let’s look at some quick stuff from those.
Interesting thing about Asbury Park’s 26-3 win over Neptune in which the Blue Bishops won their 10th straight game and limited Michael Peavy to under 50 yards – Peavy grew up in Asbury Park and didn’t move to Neptune until he was in eighth grade. Imagine if he didn’t move? That potentially unbelievable Asbury Park backfield behind talented junior QB Will Johnson would be – Peavy, Rashawn Roberts, Kaeshon McMillan and George Stephens, with Peavy, Johnson and Stephens coming back next year. Are you kidding me?
As for the games I saw, by far the best individual story was Manasquan senior Matt Marquez, who went from playing in the band last year to running back a kickoff 82 yards for a touchdown for the game-winning points in a 14-7 win over Wall. The way Marquez was fumbling the ball around while trying to corral it on his TD return and the way he was carrying it, it was clear that this was his first year playing football, but the other thing that was clear was that he has blazing speed. Great moment for him and a good ending to the season for the Warriors. Now we’ll see what happens with their coaching staff, and if Pete Cahill was just serving as an interim head coach in the transitional period after Vic Kubu’s death or whether one of the most veteran and tight-knit assistant staffs in the Shore decides that this is the end of an era and a new staff comes in.
It may be like when Mickey Healey served as Toms River North’s head coach for one year after veteran coach Bob Nani was forced out in a controversial move,and then current head coach Chip LaBarca and a whole new staff came aboard last year before leading the No. 1 Mariners to an 11-0 record this season. If they decide to move on, that would mean one of the best jobs in the Shore will be available for the first time since a young state championship-winning head coach out of Middletown North named Vic Kubu came back to coach his alma mater in 1985.
While blood pressures were rising over at Count Basie Field in Red Bank on Friday night, I was at Toms River North’s 10-0 win over Toms River East that gave the Mariners the outright American Division title. The Mariners’ defense just continues to impress, and no one runs the ball on them at all. Ten points seemed like a million points the way they were playing. The offense doesn’t go crazy trying to make huge plays behind senior QB Anthony Penna, it’s just efficient, turnover-free and clock-eating.
It was a good night all around for the Mariners, as the wife of one of their assistants hit the 50-50 drawing at halftime at Toms River East. So they took the championship, the win and the money back to the other side of town. It also marked the first night of the season in which it was so cold that I lost feeling in my toes and my fingers, which is pretty good for a whole football season. It was a big change from Thanksgiving Day, where somewhere Al Gore was ranting about global warming while I was sweating at a Thanksgiving game for the first time I can ever remember.
Speaking of 50-50s, the one at the Wall-Manasquan game was over $1,200 (note to self – buy a 50-50 ticket at this game next year), which shows you how much those two fan bases still come out to support two strong programs even in a year when Wall finished 5-5 and Manasquan went 6-4. It was just two great sets of fans who should be proud of supporting their teams no matter what. Now they can go back to grumbling about why they’re not playing next weekend. There also were a pair of future Rutgers teammates sharing the same field, Manasquan OL/DL Art Forst and Wall WR/DB Tim Wright.
As for the other games, congrats to Holmdel for adding a school-record 10th win of the season in a 21-12 triumph over Keyport. Great season for the Hornets. Also, great way to finish the season by Manalapan, which won four straight to end the year and go 6-4 after a 49-14 win over Marlboro. This is a lesson they can take with them down the road, as the Braves’ seniors like Craig Peterson, Sean Burns, Tom Sozzi and David Presby kept this team together and playing hard despite an 0-3 start. Once they missed the playoffs, they could’ve packed it in, but they kept playing hard and finished on a high note.
Southern also finished a banner season with its school-record eighth win, a 30-15 victory over Barnegat. Senior running back Brad Gesser scored a touchdown to set the school record for points in a season with 86, passing the
record of 78 set by Garrett Burgess in 2004. Also, Gesser became just
the second running back in school history to go over the 1,000-yard
rushing mark for a season, joining Muhammad Abdullah, who did it in
late 1990s.
Middletown South’s Chris Bunge had five touchdowns in filling in for fullback Matt Martino, who was knocked out of a 35-7 win over Middletown North early in the game. The Eagles only had about five seniors who played regularly in what was a “down” season (8-3) in championship-land. Those three sophomores on the offensive line will be back next year with a season of experience along with Martino, Bunge, Craig Sweeney, Sean Campbell and a host of others. Senior quarterback Pat Campbell won’t be easy to replace in the flexbone offense, but Bunge and Martino are seasoned veterans at fullback and I would guess either Sweeney or Seam Campbell, Pat’s younger brother, will probably be at quarterback because they are two of the team’s best athletes. As one Eagles backer wrote to me in an e-mail, “As Charlie Daniels sang, ‘The South will rise again!”’ Also, it was great to see senior Billy Slocum, a cancer survivor who plays mainly on special teams, get a couple carries near the end in his final game.
I know it was a tough season for Toms River South, which ended 2-8, but kicker Jake DelVento has to be considered among the Shore’s best. He booted a conference-long 52-yarder this year and hit the game-winner in overtime against Lakewood in a 16-13 win on Thanksgiving. You wonder what might have been had the Indians’ offense, which struggled to get into scoring range this year, had given Del Vento more chances.
As for the teams playing in sectional finals – Howell, Long Branch, Rumson, Asbury Park, Keansburg, Toms River North, Lacey and Point Boro – we’ll have plenty more on them this week in addition to some other feature stories. I’ll also have a bigger wrap-up of the Shore Conference season and the second annual Stumpy Awards next week before it’s time for some hoops, so stay tuned.
E-mail: stump@digitalsports.com
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