Mustangs lose second straight

Offense stalls in loss to Belvidere

by Shawn Tyrrell, Sports Writer
   Although the Manville High School football team put in a much better and more spirited effort than it did the previous week, it still wasn’t enough as last Friday night the Mustangs lost their second straight game falling 33-7 to visiting Belvidere.
   Many had thought the County Seaters were in rebuilding mode after losing 20 starters from the year before with a new coach at the helm. But Belvidere showed no ill effects from the changes and calmly and methodically churned out over 330 yards of total offense.
   Belvidere’s first drive of the game was a thing of beauty as the County Seater offense started at their own ½-foot line and marched down the field running 18 plays taking 10:03 off the clock before quarterback Joe Fallon connected with running back Ian Titus for a 15-yard touchdown pass in the opening minutes of the second quarter.
   While the Mustangs did play better, it still wasn’t the kind of effort needed to win the game. Manville head coach Brett Stibitz, who saw his team’s record drop to 1-4 on the year, felt MHS could have done better.
   ”We missed a lot of plays tonight,” Stibitz said afterward. “We did alright at times, but we couldn’t sustain anything. It seemed on one out of every three plays someone took off a play or missed an assignment. This made things tough on both sides of the ball. It seemed like whenever we did something like this they were able to capitalize.”
   Such an incident occurred on the opening kickoff. The Mustangs, while covering the return seemed to have taken down County Seater return man Thomas Calabrese, but the junior escaped the tackle of Scott Alpizar and returned the ball down the visitor’s sideline for an 83 yard score.
   Manville got the ball back and actually started off with good field position at the team’s own 42-yard line. The offense moved the ball into Belvidere territory on a 10-yard run by Joshua Michalski on a nice cut back, but the drive stalled and the Mustangs were forced to punt. MHS got a booming kick by punter Mike Hopkins, whose 54-yarder pinned the County Seaters back close to their own goal line.
   The Belvidere offense went on that long, sustained drive and after scoring the touchdown had a 12-0 lead.
   The Manville offense continued to struggle and Hopkins, punting for the second time, got off a 49-yard boot putting Belvidere back at the 25-yard line. Nine plays later with over four and half minutes off the clock, the visitors got into the end zone again when Titus barreled 15 yards up the middle for the touchdown.
   Trailing 19-0, the Mustangs got their first break on the night when the County Seaters fumbled the ball and David Olmsted recovered giving MHS the ball inside Belvidere territory at the 42-yard line.
   The offense went to work and two passes by quarterback Brendan Nurnberger went for completions. Hopkins made an 11-yard reception and got a nice block from lineman Joseph Burnett to help get the first down. The second completion was a 10-yard reception by Angelo Bell that went for an additional 10 yards following a Belvidere penalty that put the ball at the 21-yard line. MHS went for the touchdown on the next play but Nurnberger’s pass was underthrown and intercepted at the goal line by Calabrese to end the threat.
   For the next quarter and a half, Belvidere added touchdowns of 18 yards on a run by Titus and four yards on a run by Jake Sarson with five minutes to go in the contest.
   Manville got on the board late in the game when Olmsted found a wide-open Hopkins for a 74-yard touchdown strike. Hopkins had gotten behind the Belvidere secondary and easily outraced the nearest defender to the end zone.
   ”This was a tough game to lose,” Hopkins said. “That was a pretty good football team over there. It was nice to get the touchdown but it would have been better if we could have come up with the victory. We didn’t do a good job stopping their running attack. Hopefully we can improve on that for next week.”
   The Mustangs will go on the road and take on Dunellen for a Saturday afternoon contest before returning home to face South Hunterdon Oct. 24.