By: John Powers
After grinding through a rugged early part of the schedule, the South Hunterdon Regional High School football team has had two absolute routs the last two Friday nights.
That will probably change Saturday afternoon when the Eagles descend into Green Brook Township in Somerset County to play Dunellen, which is 3-4.
Friday night, the Eagles maintained their pursuit of finishing the season with a .500 record by walloping 0-7 Manville 45-18 at Jefferis Field. The win moved South Hunterdon to 2-5. Manville, on the other hand, now has lost 17 straight games.
South Hunterdon coach Sam Jefferis, who had scouted the Mustangs in their 47-0 loss to New Providence the week before, knew Manville was a poor team, but didn’t spread that information to his team.
"We don’t have any room to take anybody for granted, believe me," Jefferis said. "We really had to take this game as business as usual."
Senior running back Jesse Fennimore scored three touchdowns and ran for 106 yards on just six carries. He scored on runs of 56 and 33 yards in the first period, while senior Chad Ege scored between the long Fennimore runs on a two-yard plunge. South led 20-0 after the first quarter.
"The first two times Jesse carried the ball, he scored on those long runs," Jefferis said. "He was head and shoulders better than anybody on the field. We really started subbing kids in the last few minutes of the first half."
Manville did score in the second quarter on an 83-yard pass play.
"It was really just a bomb," Jefferis said. "They threw it up in the air, and we kind of fell asleep on the play. They do have some football players over there."
The Eagles quickly regained the momentum as Fennimore scored on a short run, and sophomore Chad Snell returned an interception 51 yards for a 32-6 halftime lead. Senior quarterback Glenn Tabasko and freshman fullback Kyle Hart scored South’s second-half touchdowns. Jefferis said senior two-way tackle Robbie Brown played well.
Fennimore now has scored seven rushing touchdowns, including six in the last two games against Ihmotep Prep and Manville. He also has caught two of senior Glenn Tabasko’s passes for scores and returned an interception 86 yards against Hackettstown for a score.
The Eagles have three games left. They will face Dunellen on the road Saturday followed by a consolation game for non-playoff teams the weekend of Nov. 12-13, followed by the traditional Thanksgiving Day morning game with Delaware Valley at South.
Next up is Dunellen, which had last week off. The Destroyers have won two straight against 1-7 Cardinal McCarrick and 0-8 Highland Park.
Dunellen lost to Belvidere 40-12 Oct. 8. South lost to Belvidere 13-6 Sept. 17.
Three of Belvidere’s touchdowns came on long pass plays. But South Hunterdon will need to be successful running the ball and stop Destroyer senior tailback Ryan DeNapoli and senior fullback Kyle Quinn if it expects to win and keep its hopes of a 5-5 season alive.
