39 straight and counting

Florence, NBC football teams continue winning ways

By: Sean Moylan
   Under normal circumstances, Burlington City has the kind of offense (win or lose) that’s used to producing at least five or six big plays a game. But that was before the Blue Devils took on Nick Lubrano’s Florence High football team’s punishing defense this past Saturday at "The Pit."
   Florence shut out the Burlington City 21-0 and the Flashes’ fans had to brush up on their Pre-Alegbra as their team held City to -1 yard rushing and no first downs.
   "It was a typical Florence game with City. It was hard-hitting. It was ferocious," said Florence Coach Joe Frappolli, whose team had a few players injured in the contest. Another thing that was typical about the battle was Florence won.
   Quentin Loftin had a terrific game on both sides of the ball as he ran for a pair of touchdown, accumulated 102 rushing yards on 19 carries and picked off a pass. Chris Foehr and Jeff Perro also had interceptions for the victors.
   "We saw them two Friday nights ago versus Paul the VI and they were so explosive offensively. They just faltered in the red zone," said Coach Frappolli. "Nick Lubrano (Florence’s defensive coordinator), he sort of has their number. They didn’t have an answer to anything we did defensively."
   Lubrano and his staff of Peppi Pichette, Tony Luyber and Fred Dunphy came up with tremendous schemes to shut down Burlington City’s running attack. Steve Ordog and Ross O’Neill prepared their secondary well enough to hold City to just 18 yards passing on 16 attempts. Defensively, Shaquan Virgil, Chris Salaga, Marcus Curry, Dahvis Blakney, Malcolm Jenkins and Ron Edmonds all had tremendous games.
   Frappolli was also very pleased with the work of sophomores Anthony Krause and Jimmy Martinson in the secondary. Martinson may have been the Flashes most valuable player in the contest as his sensational punts pinned Burlington City deep in their own territory time after time (he averaged nearly 36 yards a punt).
   Florence needed its defense and special teams to be great because its offense ran hot and cold throughout the contest. "Our offense is still not where we’d like it to be," Frappolli remarked.
   Nevertheless, in the opening quarter Loftin set up his own 4-yard score with an interception. Matt Belcher added the extra point to give Florence a 7-0 lead.
   "Q (Loftin) had a good game. We just basically mixed up our Wing-T and power stuff," said Frappolli. "City was giving us the inside runs early."
   Leading 7-0 Florence made some offensive adjustments at the half and in the third quarter Loftin took a pitch 35 yards to "the house."
   Then at the 6:50 mark of the final quarter, Florence ran some of its famous misdirection and when the play was all over Virgil (8 carries for 69 yards) had himself a 27-yard touchdown. Belcher then connected for his third PAT in three tries and sent the crowd home happy.
   Kevin Reeder had a nice 13-yard run while Joe Price (19 yards), Curry (9 yards) and Foehr (6 yards) each amassed more yards on the ground than the entire Blue Devils team. Although he was only asked to throw once, Florence quarterback Rob Hutchison did a good job of controlling the offense. Florence’s winning streak increased to 39 games with the win. Yet Florence is not quite a perfect team.
   "We still have a lot of work to do offensively," said Frappolli, who felt City’s defense stuffed a lot of things his offense tried to do this past weekend.
   It was Pop Warner Day at Florence on Saturday and those festivities went very well. League president Paul Fletcher does a magnificent job with that program.
   Florence (3-0) will surely be heavily favored in Saturday’s home game versus New Egypt.