By: Sean Moylan
Superstar senior running back/linebacker/safety Abree Jones didn’t play at all. Senior Anthony Cardone, who has been nursing injuries the past few weeks, had just enough power to play in just a few plays at linebacker this past Saturday.
It didn’t matter. The budding young stars on the Florence Township Memorial High School varsity football team took over and led the Flashes to a dominating 31-8 win over Maple Shade in Saturday’s Homecoming game at "THE PIT."
As great as Florence’s offense was in the contest, one has to hand out kudos to the defense first. Nick Lubrano’s sophisticated schemes on "D" perplexed the Wildcats the whole afternoon. Maple Shade had 22 yards rushing and 44 yards passing, and the Wildcats’ offense didn’t get out of the "red" until the fourth quarter when the game was already 31-0 and all but over. Florence attacked from all angles as Chris Salaga and Ronnie Edmonds both had monster games on defense and Shaquan Virgil and Malcolm Jenkins each came up with huge sacks.
"Our defense was swarming," said Florence’s Coach Joe Frappolli.
Jeff Perro and Drew Johnson added to the Wildcats’ misery with interceptions and Florence’s fantastic linebacker Joe Spahn, a senior, made his share of tackles too.
"With Abree (Jones) out of the lineup we needed someone to control the offense," said Frappolli, who turned to his intelligent veteran Spahn, who played at quarterback much of the way.
"We wanted to throw the ball a little on Saturday."
Spahn and Robby Hutchison combined for 79 yards in the air. While 79 yards may seem like a modest number, it did free up the Flashes’ running attack even more as Quentin Loftin had a spectacular day with a pair of 5-yard touchdowns and 110 yards rushing on 21 carries.
Spahn is always a threat to run, so Florence offense kept the Wildcats’ defense honest that way too. He completed two passes to Jenkins for 36 yards, including a 12-yarder for a touchdown in the second quarter.
Florence also got productive offensive games out of Marcus Curry (four carries for 18 yards) and Chris Foehr (two carries for 11 yards and a touchdown). Freshman Anthony Krause also made an important catch.
Florence’s not so secret weapon, kicker Matt Becher, had an awesome game with 4 PATS and a 26-yard field goal at the beginning of the second quarter.
After playing three emotional games in a row against Palmyra, New Egypt and Burlington City, it would have been easy for Florence to have had a letdown versus Maple Shade. But the Flashes only know one speed full speed ahead.
Yet, despite the great game, the Flashes would still like to get Jones back as soon as possible.
"Jones accounts for 70 percent of our offense," said Frappolli. "It was a game-time decision to keep him out. It was a matter that if someone is not as ready physically we’ll keep him out."
Florence has not played a game this season with its entire starting offense intact. Everyone but Hutchison has had some kind of injury or sickness. Nevertheless, Florence picked up its seventh victory of the season and its 31st win in a row on Saturday. It also clinched at least a piece of the Freedom Division title with the victory.
Although Delran just picked up its first win of the season this past weekend, Florence will not take the Bears lightly in this Friday night’s road game because Delran is a Group II school and the Flashes need the power points and are treating it as another championship game.
"Winning Friday night (at Delran) is the difference. They’re (the Flashes) on the verge of making their own destiny and I’m happy to be part of it," said Frappolli. "They’ve done everything they possibly can do at this point. Every challenge they’ve met and they’ve been able to handle it in good form."
NBC
A week and a day after scoring the big winning touchdown in the fourth quarter against Cherry Hill West, Bryan Reading made a pair of first-quarter touchdown receptions to lead the Northern Burlington County Regional High School varsity football squad to a 33-15 win over Paul VI on Saturday afternoon.
After a strong defensive series, NBC took over at Paul VI ‘s 35-yardline and it wasn’t long after that NBC quarterback Jake Pates found Reading open for an 18-yard score.
Paul VI’s defense made a big play for a safety to trim NBC’s lead. NBC answered with a big defensive play of its own when R.J. Melton recovered a fumble, which eventually led to another Pates-Reading touchdown hookup, this time for 30 yards.
If one had to point to one reason why the Greyhounds are suddenly winning games against some very good opponents, it would have to be the change in their defensive philosophy the past two weeks. NBC is now going for and making crucial defensive plays at the moment of truth. In fact, Andy Hoyer’s key 5-yard touchdown at the end of the second quarter gave the Greyhounds a commanding 20-2 lead, which helped them withstand a pair of third-quarter touchdowns by Paul VI.
In the fourth quarter, Jon Reising’s Greyhounds decided not to take any unnecessary chances as they turned to their security blanket, David Robinson. Robinson scored two touchdowns on runs of 1 and 12 yards. Just as important, his runs ate up the clock until NBC had secured its first lopsided win of the season.
Only a year before, it was Paul VI who had blown out Northern. But this is hardly the same Greyhound team as last year. In fact, with his 141 yards on 29 carries, Robinson now has 1,275 yards rushing this season. And he did that against some of the most formidable defenses in Burlington County.
Josert Fonseca, who has had a good year kicking the ball for NBC, made three extra-pointers in the game. NBC is a good team that’s finally starting to win on the field.
The Greyhounds’ quest now is to get back to .500. They are currently 3-5 so they’ll need to win at Willingboro on Friday and win a state consolation game to do so.
BRHS
Although the Bordentown Regional High School boys’ varsity football team had its third exceptional defensive game in a row this past Saturday at Palmyra, the Panthers were able to sneak by the Scotties, 12-7, with a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns.
"They (the Panthers) did the exact same thing to us last year," said Bordentown Coach Jack Yost.
For the longest time it appeared that the Scotties would take over total control of the contest as Bordentown running back Darnell Ganges (171 yards) was running wild on the Panthers’ defense. Yet neither Ganges or any other Scottie could seem to deliver the knockout punch.
"We were dominating. We were up 7-0 at halftime," noted Yost. "Bill Dekovitch scored on a (4 yard) naked bootleg. He was on his own on that one."
Bordentown was just not making the most of its opportunities and it ended up getting hurt at the end because of that.
"We had two breakaways and both times we got caught from behind," said Yost.
Still, Bordentown was sitting pretty with a 7-0 lead entering the final quarter, thanks in large part to its defense.
"That was probably one of our best games on defense. Josh Slezak . . . he’s still a menace on defense," said Yost.
The Scotties’ defense held Palmyra in check until Will Brown scored on a 75-yard draw play in the fourth quarter. But Bordentown managed to stay ahead by a point when it stuffed the subsequent attempt for a 2-point conversion. It appeared that the Scotties might even hold on to record their second win of the season when Panthers quarterback Nick Strom broke the Scotties’ hearts with a 24-yard, go-ahead touchdown pass to Quron Pratt with under a minute left in the contest.
Nonetheless, Bordentown has been playing extremely competitive football the past few weeks. And one could argue that with couple of breaks Bordentown could have easily won its last three games.
"Lately, I think the level of competition is better for us. We’re playing teams that are more at our level," Yost said. Bordentown (1-6) will host a tough Burlington Township squad on Saturday.
BULLDOGS
While all of the Bordentown Bulldogs teams have improved this season, Mike Denelsbeck’s 125-pounders clearly have shown the most improvement. Denelsbeck’s group crushed Maple Shade, 20-0 ,this past weekend on the strength of Dylan Harvey’s 10-yard and 68-yard touchdown runs and Taylor Griffiths’ 55-yard score. Harvey, once again, gained over 100 yards on the ground. Of, course, Denelsbeck picked his entire defense as the star of the game.
Bordentown (3-4, 2-1 in the division) can make the playoffs and climb back to .500 with a win over another local favorite, Northern Burlington, this weekend. The entire Bulldogs program will complete the regular season this weekend.

