MHS football team rallies too late

By: Ken Weingartner
   Jim Griffin said his Monroe High football team did some "tremendous things" in its loss to unbeaten Colonia last Saturday.
   If the Falcons had done a few more fundamental things, the outcome might have been different.
   Monroe fell to 0-4 with a 19-16 setback to the Patriots. The Falcons trailed 19-0 at the half before storming back in the third quarter.
   "What I told them is not printable," Griffin said about his halftime speech. "We didn’t do anything differently in the second half, we just decided we wanted to play some."
   With the exception of a couple plays, the defense played well. The Falcons gave up just 189 yards total offense to Colonia and limited the Patriots to one first down in the second half.
   The unit held Colonia out of the endzone late in the fourth quarter after a fumbled snap on a punt attempt gave the Pats the ball at the Monroe 12. Brian Staffa and Brian Swenson combined to sack quarterback Derek DuBois on fourth down to end the threat.
   Staffa, Chris Kovach and Mario Zygadlo had strong defensive games. Zygadlo had a fumble recovery that set up a touchdown and consecutive tackles in the backfield that resulted in a safety. Staffa stripped and recovered the ball from a Patriot running back and also had a couple of tackles for losses.
   Of course, 126 of Colonia’s yards came on touchdown runs by DuBois. The quarterback’s 94-yard scoring scamper in the second quarter came on a third-down play and followed an offside penalty that gave the Patriots breathing room from the end zone.
   "Our defense played pretty well," said Griffin, whose team visits North Brunswick for an 8 p.m. game Saturday. "Derek’s a great player, a tremendous talent. But that was as much bad football on our part as talent on his."
   The Falcons were their own enemy much of the day. They lost three fumbles and had a punt blocked for a touchdown. In addition, they had a number of plays on which the ball was mishandled, twice in critical situations on the final drive of the game.
   One came when a bad snap out of the shotgun formation resulted in a loss of 15 yards, pushing back the Falcons from the Colonia 23 to the 38.
   "We had them on their heels," Griffin said. "That’s the kind of stuff that cannot happen."
   The other miscue was on a 40-yard field goal attempt by Szczepan Kowalewski, which missed wide left with 10 seconds to play.
   "There’s no magical answers," Griffin said. "We have to learn to execute, to do our jobs. It’s that simple. People have to be able to make fundamental plays. We’re not asking anything special of them."
   Eric Gaston played well at quarterback for the Falcons, particularly in the second half. The junior finished with 83 yards on 12 carries and 3 of 5 for 51 yards passing. His 39-yard TD run on Monroe’s first possession of the third quarter got the team back in the game.
   The score came one play after Keith Hackett kept the drive alive with a 6-yard pickup on a fake punt.
   Zygadlo’s fumble recovery set up Gaston’s second TD of the game, a 1-yard run. One play after the ensuing kickoff, Zygadlo tackled DuBois in the end zone for a safety.