BRHS football falls as Florence makes annual playoff push

By: Sean Moylan Sports Writer
    “We were a little flat, but our goal was to get the game in hand (early) and pull a lot of starters. And that’s what we did,” said Florence Township Memorial High varsity football head coach Joe Frappolli, who had mixed feelings about his team’s 25-6 win over Bordentown on Friday night in Florence.
    “A win is a win, but we’ve got to play a lot better than that.”
    On the positive side for the Flashes, their junior running back Marcus Rawls had his second monster game in a row. He ran for a pair of 1-yard first-half touchdowns. And after he returned the opening second half kickoff back 85 yards for 6 points, Florence was able to rest most of its starters the rest of the way.
    Rawls ran for 88 yards on 15 carries and his explosive runs even set up Jimmy Martinson’s 4-yard touchdown toss to Zach Carugno, which made the score 19-0 by the end of the first half.
    “Carugno hasn’t played a whole lot of offense but he scored on a play action pass. It was nice to see him get back in the swing of things,” noted Frappolli, whose team only amassed 129 yards rushing on 35 carries. “They (the Scotties) played aggressive and they overloaded the line of scrimmage like we thought they would. I was more concerned with our lackadaisical attitude in the running game. But they run some nice things.”
    During Florence’s recent four-
year state championship run, great special teams were what always separated the Flashes from the rest of the pack. But, with the exception of Rawls’ great touchdown return, Florence was actually hurt all game by the mediocre play of its special teams on Friday night.
    “We still are making mistakes. We are really disappointed in our specialty teams,” noted Frappolli, whose team missed three extra point attempts in the contest and blew some assignments. “We had three kickoffs in a row where we gave them really good field position (and 122 yards).”
    However, the Scotties were hurt by penalties (seven penalties for 75 yards in the contest) and the always brilliant defensive schemes of Florence’s defensive coordinator Nick Lubrano.
    “Ernest Curry had a big interception in the second quarter for us. And Kevin Jiras had another big game on both sides of the ball,” said Frappolli, who was also happy with the overall play of veterans Jimmy Narkun and Chucky Taylor.
    For the first time in years, Bordentown’s started a team with as much overall varsity experience as Florence. In fact, Bordentown did some things very well in the game. Thomas Lee, the Scotties senior workhorse in the backfield, rushed for 66 yards on 13 carries while quarterback Brett Pedersen rushed for 37 yards on 10 carries and completed a 9-yard touchdown pass to Peter Pulhac in the fourth quarter for the Scotties only points of the game.
    “We let their quarterback run loose a little bit,” said Frappolli.
    Bordentown’s Spike Pasqual caught a Pedersen delivery for 14 yards and he ran two times for 9 yards. Ben Walker also had an 11-yard reception for Bordentown while Matt Bauer had a 4-yard carry.
    On the other side Florence’s Korey Linico rushed for 16 yards while Josh Stillwell ran two times for 12 yards and caught a 2-yard pass by Martinson. Daquan Chapman (four carries for 7 yards), Mike Staton (a carry for 5 yards), Jake Foehr (two carries for 5 yards) and Sam Ugowe (two runs for 4 yards) all had some success on the ground while Curry made a 1-yard catch.
    “It looks as though every week is another meat grinder. We didn’t play as well as we could play, but we have a couple of our players banged up,” said Frappolli, whose team has to prepare to play an excellent Burlington Township team on the road on Halloween night.
    To avoid a potential “Horror Show,” Frappolli knows his club will have to bring its “A” game. Florence needs wins because despite its 5-1 record it is not a lock for the playoffs just yet because of power points. So Friday night’s contest versus the Falcons will be a big game against a big local rival. Larry Larned’s hard-working Bordentown team will host Willingboro on Saturday afternoon.
    NBC
    The Northern Burlington High football team was defeated by Senaca, 27-7, last Friday and is now 1-6 on the season. Boomer Walton and Joe Washington hooked up on a 15-yard touchdown pass for Northern Burlington’s score in the second quarter.
    Northern Burlington is scheduled to play at Paul VI this Friday night at 7 p.m.