Gutsy call gives NBC football 14-13 win

Bordentown has another great defensive effort in loss

By: Sean Moylan Sports Writer
    Well, I’m glad we finally won one,” said Northern Burlington County Regional High football head coach Jon Reising, after his Greyhounds edged Cherry Hill West, 14-13, in last Friday night’s home game.
    It was Northern Burlington’s first victory since beating Pemberton, 20-13, the second week of the regular season.
    With nothing to lose, Reising made the decision to let his Greyhounds go for a two-point conversion and a potential win in the fourth quarter. Senior Joe Washington, NBC’s veteran starting quarterback, did the rest.
    “We had Joe (Washington) roll out to the right. Joe had the option to run it in or pass it. He decided to run it in,” said Reising, who thought Washington may have caught Cherry Hill West’s defense a little off guard with his brilliant last-second decision to scoot into the end zone.
    Only moments before, Washington had found wide receiver Chad Dill open on a quick curl for a 7-yard touchdown.
    While Dill, Jonathan Blake and Derek Antonnuci were a few of Washington’s favorite targets in the contest, NBC’s longtime quarterback spread the wealth, completing 11 of 16 passes for 167 yards. In fact, with nine minutes left in the second quarter, one of Washington’s 16 throws was caught by senior running back Andrew Bothwell, who scored from 12 yards out on the play to cut Cherry Hill West’s lead at the time to 7-6.
    “Joe Washington hit Andrew Bothwell with a pass coming out of the backfield. But then there was a bad snap on the extra point and we missed it,” added Reising, who was happy to see Bothwell run for over 100 yards in the game. “Andrew has had a great season running the ball.”
    Yet even when Cherry Hill West went up 13-6 with a touchdown toward the end of the first half, NBC didn’t panic because its defense was playing well.
    “On their (Cherry Hill West) first offensive series, they came out and moved the ball well on us. Then, we as coaches, put our guys in the gaps where they were running and we had success after that,” noted Reising. “Realistically, everyone on our defense played very well.”
    Reising was particularly pleased with the play of his defensive linemen John Rafferty, Eric Pearson, Rich Nwankwo and Will Morgan. Ron Garrett and Jeff Townsend also had stellar defensive games for the winning side.
    Even in previous lean years, Reising’s clubs have been close to .500. But this year NBC is 2-7 mainly because it has suffered serious injuries to key starters and it doesn’t have the kind of depth to slot in new stars into those vacated spots.
    “To be honest, our record is not indicative of how well our kids have played,” said Reising, whose defense has actually played decent football all season but it has gotten tired by the end of games. “We’ve been worn down and that’s tough to deal with.”
    Nevertheless, the Greyhounds will be looking for a win when they play a Group III South Jersey consolation game at Deptford this coming Saturday.
    BRHS
    The Bordentown Regional High varsity football has surrendered just 19 points in its last two games. Unfortunately, the Scotties lost both of those games due to their season-
long struggles at the offensive end of the field.
    This past Saturday at Bordentown, the Maple Shade Wildcats defeated the Scotties 7-0 on a 3-yard touchdown pass from CJ Szymczak to Brian Schafer midway through the third quarter. Maple Shade made the PAT to complete the only scoring of the entire game.
    “Lately, we don’t give up a whole lot of points. It was another game where our defense bent but didn’t break,” said Bordentown football coach Larry Larned. “Our defensive coaches EJ Nemeth, Ernie Covington, and Big Larry Carthan are doing a good job at the defensive end.”
    Bordentown’s Leon Jackson and Spike Pasqual both got the job done at defensive end and Pasqual also was one of the Scotties’ primary ball carriers on offense, along with Isiah Richmond.
    “Our quarterback Brett Pedersen had a great day running the ball and he ran the offense as well as he could,” said Larned. “He played well on defense too. He played free safety and he broke up a lot of passes.”
    Bordentown actually had a couple of great opportunities to score inside of the red zone but couldn’t punch it in for six points.
    “We couldn’t finish. We had a first-and-goal from the one in the second quarter. We got stuffed on first-and-goal and second-and-
goal,” said Larned, whose Scotties came extremely close to breaking the plane of the goal line on one of their runs. “The battle of field position we won early. But we couldn’t finish and eventually they just wore us down.”
    Bordentown’s defense forced two fumbles. Bordentown had the ball at the end of the game but failed to score. While most of the detailed stat sheets for the game were destroyed by Saturday’s rainy conditions, Scotties’ senior star receiver Peter Pulhac made an excellent catch for a long gain. But in the end the Wildcats just made a few more big plays as they collected 13 first downs while the Scotties moved the chains just six times in the game. It was also Senior Day at Bordentown and that ceremony was a success.
    “It was nice. We recognized our seniors, the band members and the cheerleaders,” added Larned, who always appreciates activities which contribute to school spirit.
    Bordentown (1-7) is scheduled to play a NJSIAA Central Jersey Group I consolation football game at Keansburg on Saturday afternoon. The Scotties are also scheduled to play a Thanksgiving Day game at New Egypt to wrap up their season.