By: John Powers
The improvement continues for the South Hunterdon Regional High School football team.
Unfortunately, the Eagles still are winless at 0-4.
Last Friday night, South led Skyland Conference Raritan Division rival North Warren late, but fell 21-19 at home. South Hunterdon will play another divisional rival, 2-3 Hackettstown, on the road Friday night.
"We battled hard," South Hunterdon coach Sam Jefferis said. "I told the kids that once we got past Somerville on the schedule that we had a good chance to win the rest of the way. But we still need to get over the hump."
The Eagles trailed 14-0 at the end of the first quarter, but rallied with 19 unanswered points. Chad Ege scored on a one-yard run, Tommy Molnar caught a 12-yard pass from quarterback Glenn Tabasko, and Tabasko scored from five yards out to give the Eagles a 19-14 fourth-quarter lead.
"We dominated the game after we got behind, but we did a lot of things wrong," Jefferis said. "We had a lot of penalties, and they really came at inopportune times. Glenn had a very good game on offense."
Senior running back Jesse Fennimore had another strong game, rushing for 150 yards on 17 carries. Fennimore has 323 yards rushing on the year. Ege went for 53 yards on 15 carries, and Mark Czyzcswski had 36 yards on three carries. Linebacker Kyle Donnelly made nine tackles.
North Warren improved to 3-2 and 2-2 in divisional play. A week before, it was the Patriots who rallied from a 13-0 deficit to beat Delaware Valley 18-13. Friday night’s win was just the Patriots’ seventh since 1997.
"We used to have a pretty easy time with them," Jefferis said. "I think we beat them the first 10 times we played them, but they’re better. They’re not a bad team."
The Eagles will play at 2-3 Hackettstown Friday night. The Tigers are 2-0 in divisional play, having beaten North Warren and Belvidere. The Tigers had only yielded 12.0 points per game before Saturday afternoon’s 30-12 loss at Wallkill Valley. The secondary has been bolstered by juniors Max Newton and Rob Waldele, who has scored touchdowns on a 97-yard interception return and a 103-yard fumble return.
Senior middle linebacker Kyle Casendino leads the 43 defensive scheme. He played nose guard in the 50 set the Tigers used last year.
The Eagles will play host to Imhotep Academy of Philadelphia at 7 p.m. Oct. 22.
