By John E. Powers, Sports Writer
There are moments in a game when things can get away from a team; opportunities that slip away; tackles that are missed; possible caught passes dropped.
The South Hunterdon Regional High School football team experienced all of that Friday night in a 35-0 loss to unbeaten Middlesex (5-0) at Jefferis Athletic Stadium.
The Eagles did some positive things, like forcing three Middlesex turnovers in the first half, including a Parker Jensen interception in the first half that stopped a Blue Jay drive late in the first half.
But there simply wasn’t enough of those things.
South Hunterdon, which plays at Manville (2-4) Friday night, dropped to 1-4.
”The turnovers really hurt us, the turnovers were a big problem for us,” said senior Brian Snell, who plays quarterback and safety. “We have a young team, but it’s really about how bad you want it. How hard do you want to fight to get there?”
The opening kickoff was an example.
Middlesex fumbled deep in its own territory, but recovered the ball, then went on a 9-play, 66-yard touchdown drive that ended with quarterback Dan Skazenski’s 2-yard run.
Middlesex then took advantage of a bad South Hunterdon snap. The ball was recovered at the South Hunterdon 39.
The Eagles dropped Middlesex for a 3-yard loss, forcing the Blue Jays into a fourth and seven from the 14. But Mike Little sprinted up the middle for a touchdown to make it 12-0. The Eagles did stop Middlesex’ first two 2-point conversion run attempts.
”The one thing about our kids is that they play hard, they really do and as we said, it was a physics problems, Middlesex has some impressive looking kids,” head coach Jim Meert said. “It’s mass times acceleration. They just won that battle. I love our kids and kept battling.”
The Eagles were hurt when junior linebacker/tackle Chris Beekman was loss to a collarbone injury early in the game and had to leave the game.
”That really hurt us on offense and defense. He’s our best guy so that hurt,” Meert said. “We can’t afford to lose people. As I said to them, look at the people we play like Dayton, Bound Brook, Middlesex, Belvidere. All of them are in the playoff hunt, and the teams we have to play yet, North Warren, Manville, the consolation game, it’s like a whole new season for us. If we had scored once, it would have helped, but at least they didn’t score in the 40s.”
Middlesex extended its lead to 20-0 in the second quarter on Little’s 31-yard run and a Skazenski two-point conversion.
Snell did throw a 19-yard completion to Jensen, then ran for another 19 yards, but on the next play, South Hunterdon lost the ball on a fumble.
Snell also hooked up with sophomore Sam Franzini on a 10-yard completion, but the drive fizzled.
Junior T.J. Sprague recovered a fumble and also had a sack. But Middlesex nearly scored again late in the first half.
Skazenski threw 31 yards to tight end John Stockton to the South 24. But on the next play, Jensen picked off Skazenski at the 1-yard line with 44 seconds left in the halftime.
”That was a great play by Parker Jensen, and so did (Brandon) Scesney, and we got them to fumble a couple of times, but we fumbled the ball three times in the first period, and we’d never done that anywhere I’ve coached, and that hurt,” Meert said.
Snell said the team’s focus is on Manville, which beat Dunellen 7-6 last Saturday. The Eagles beat Manville 27-13 last year.
”It was a tough one. We didn’t go out there and execute our game plan. We’re just going to go out there and get better,” said Snell. “We’re going to practice as hard as we can in the days leading up to Manville.”

