By: Sean Moylan Sports Writer
In a week filled with overwhelming sorrow, the Robbinsville High football team came together as an extended family and, for a few hours, lessened its collective pain with a 16-12 win over Highland Park this past Saturday.
“Within the program we’ve had five deaths (to family members) within a week. All we can do is to keep moving forward and to try to turn a negative into a positive,” said Robbinsville varsity football coach Jason Gray, whose own wife lost a dear cousin this past week.
“Our program has been through a lot of heartbreak this past week. It’s the circle of life. (We) went to two viewings on Friday night. It puts things in perspective. Football . . . it’s just a game. But (with a win over Highland Park) at least we can put a little sunshine on a dark week.”
Gray said that Saturday’s victory over a talented Highland Park squad did not play out like a Hollywood movie with a big dramatic ending. This was real life. The Ravens simply played smart defense and let their star senior running back Brian Alston, behind some tremendous blocking by Jelani Fenton, carry them on offense.
In the second quarter, Alston kicked a 36-yard field goal but Highland Park’s Nate Smith answered with a 13-yard touchdown run and the Owls led 6-3 at the half.
Robbinsville scored on an 11-yard third quarter dive play by Alston to take the lead for good. Then Alston tallied again on an 18-yard toss play and Robbinsville built up its advantage to 16-6, with a little more than a quarter remaining in the contest.
“Brian Alston is our go-to guy. He rushed for (225) yards on 53 carries. He’s over 1,000 yards rushing now,” said Gray, who unofficially has Alston down for 1,010 yards rushing this season.
Robbinsville’s creative defensive coordinator Carmen Magnotta came up with an excellent plan to keep Smith from dominating Saturday’s game like he has dominated so many games before. However, Magnotta needed Christian Nemeth (six tackles, three assists), Jelani Fenton (five tackles, four assists) Zach Barby (interception, two tackles, two assists), Andrew Harvillla (six tackles, four assists), Jordon Hankins (interception, tackle, four assists), Eric Strano (two tackles, four assists) and others to all to be on the same page in order for his plan to work. And it did work.
“Nate Smith . . . he’s not All-
State for nothing. He’s a very violent (and fast) player and we don’t have anyone who can hit like him,” said Gray. “He’s a blue-chipper.”
In the final quarter, the Ravens held on to their lead.
“They scored midway through the fourth quarter. Then we tried to control the clock,” said Gray, whose team worked the ball deep inside the red zone late in the contest. “We had to decide whether to kick a field goal or go for it on fourth down. We went for it and didn’t make the first down.”
Highland Park, consequently, took over on downs and Robbinsville went to its prevent defense and ended up stopping the Owls’ drive at around the 50-yard line to end it. Gray and his staff were very pleased with the win.
“We’re happy that we were able to play a full 48 minutes and come away with a win over a team that was 4-0,” said Gray.
In Highland Park much of talk in the week leading up to the game had been about how the Owls’ planned to avenge last year’s 19-12 loss to the Ravens. But in a time of great hardship, the Ravens bonded and played as a family.
“We upset them last year and they came in talking about how they would win the rematch, but our kids stepped up,” said Gray, whose team had suffered too much in recent weeks to let this game go. “How many wakes and losses can our kids take until we say ‘let’s go get them!’”
Robbinsville “got” a great Highland Park team on Saturday. But this coming Saturday’s game won’t be any easier as the Ravens are scheduled to host a 5-1 Hillside squad.
“Every week’s a playoff week,” added Gray, whose 2-4 team basically needs to keep on winning if it has any shot at making the playoffs.
Despite the Ravens’ record, Gray and his staff have done a wonderful job this season. Of Robbinsville’s four losses, the Ewing game was the only game it could have won.
Until Robbinsville’s first ever graduation last spring the Ravens had never lost a player to anything other than an injury or a transfer. Robbinsville graduated five starting players (Chalie Nocera, Shae “Big Play” Fahey, Tyler Fasanella, Mark Panes and Derick Hughes) off of last year’s playoff team who all made college football teams this fall. Most football teams would have been devastated by the loss of just two or three such players, but Coach Gray never made it an issue.
After Hughes, the Ravens’ star kicker graduated, Gray turned Alston into a fulltime kicker while getting Hughes younger sister Kristen and Joe Normandin ready as back-up kickers.
Besides Alston, the Ravens simply don’t have as many go-to guys as they had last year. One can’t teach 4.4 speed. Jason Gray is still an outstanding football man. And this past week in his football team’s darkest hour, he proved himself to be a wonderful and compassionate human being as well.

