By: Bob Nuse
Just two weeks into the season, this year’s version of the Princeton High football team is starting to do things that teams before it have not done in a long time.
"This is crazy," said junior Frank Giacalone, who caught a pair of passes and recorded a quarterback sack as the Little Tigers rallied for a 20-14 overtime win over West Windsor-Plainsboro South on Saturday. "We’ve heard stories about how Princeton was good in football in the early ’90s, but there hasn’t been a lot of success lately. We’re trying to change that whole image of the program."
In fact, Princeton’s win on Saturday gave the Little Tigers a 2-0 record to start the season for the first time since 1994, when they opened the season with wins over Hamilton and Hightstown on the way to a 5-5 season. And it’s been eight years since Princeton has managed to win more than two games in a season.
"This is nice," said Princeton coach Steve Everette, whose team will host Hightstown 3 p.m. Thursday as it looks to go to 3-0 for the first time since the 1991 season. "It’s been a long time since Princeton opened the season 2-0. Now we have a big game on Thursday and we know that’s going be to a challenge against a very good Hightstown team. But that’s what you want. We have to come out and play well."
For a while on Saturday, it didn’t look like the Little Tigers would get to 2-0 on the season. The Little Tigers turned the ball over twice and found themselves trailing, 14-0, at halftime. But this Princeton team is a little different, and the deficit was one it could overcome.
"I told the kids that in the first half, they executed and we didn’t," Everette said. "We needed to come out and not make mistakes and play the way we were capable of playing. In the second half we didn’t make as many mistakes and we made some tremendous defensive plays to get the game into overtime."
WW-P South took a 7-0 lead in the first quarter when Brandon Manley ran 35 yards for a touchdown. In the second quarter, a Grant MacQueen interception set up the second Pirate touchdown, as quarterback Brian Morris hooked up with Manley for an 11-yard scoring pass.
"We played a good first half, but we haven’t learned yet how to keep a team down," said WW-P South coach Louis Solomon, whose team fell to 1-1 on the season with the loss. "We’re both teams that are trying to get over the hump right now. They took advantage of some mistakes we made and we didn’t take advantage. We just have to learn from this and come out stronger the next time."
Princeton came out strong in the second half and turned the game around completely. Early in the third quarter, Vinny Giacalone connected on the first of his three touchdown passes, hitting Alexz Henriques for a 14-yard scoring pass. On the Little Tigers’ next possession, the senior quarterback connected with Ben Guervil for a 3-yard scoring strike to even the score.
That set the stage for a fourth quarter in which Princeton threw a pair of interceptions, but held on to force an overtime period.
"We’ve talked all year about it being a new day and a new opportunity for us," Everette said. "We come into each game wanting to play well. These kids believe and they expect to win and that’s the biggest thing. They have a lot of confidence in themselves and in each other."
WW-P South looked like it might pull out a win in regulation when Stuart Adams intercepted a pass and gave the Pirates the ball on the Princeton-11 with 1:35 left to play. But after a pair of runs, South was hit with an intentional grounding penalty and was pushed back to the 29-yard line. With just 11 seconds left, a 45-yard field goal attempt by Jon Lupo fell just short.
"They made a couple of mistakes in the fourth quarter and we didn’t take advantage," said Solomon, whose team will play at Ewing on Thursday night. "But I don’t want to take any credit away from Princeton. They came out on the road and won a close game. They deserve all the credit for that. We’ll fight back from this and get ready for a tough Ewing team."
In overtime, Princeton scored on its possession from the 25-yard line when Vinny Giacalone hooked up with Guervil for a 7-yard touchdown pass. After a missed extra point, South still had a chance, but the Princeton defense held and the Little Tigers had their win.
"We made some mistakes in the first half, but in the second half we negated some of those things," said Everette, whose team overcame rainy and sloppy conditions for the win. "We opened it up a little more in the second half. We’re a passing team, that’s what we do. We can’t change what we do because of the conditions."
"It was an exciting game, but we expected to win," Frank Giacalone added. "We have confidence that we can win every game we play. Now the next challenge for us is Hightstown. That’s our next opportunity. Kids like T.R. Johnson and Mike Vieten, they really lead us and get us fired up. At halftime, even though we were down, we knew that we could still come back.
"Last year, we would have been down and probably not been able to pull out the win. But this year is different. We stepped up and showed we could do it. The whole team did this together."
And together, they’re changing the fortunes of Princeton High football.
