Can Brick Memorial beat up the Brunswicks? That will be answered on Friday night when the Mustang football team heads back to that vicinity of Middlesex County to take on South Brunswick in a 7 pm. kickoff in the NJSIAA Group IV, Central Jersey playoff semifinals after vanquishing North Brunswick, 10-7, in the opening round on Friday night.
CHRIS KELLY staff Joe Goble (24) carries the ball for the Brick Township High School Dragons during his team’s 28-7 loss to Triton In an NJSIAA playoff game Nov. 15. “We’ve got to take down the Brunswicks,” said quarterback Brian Staub after sophomore Jordan Loiodice kicked a 27-yard field goal with two seconds left on Friday. Loiodice has made three of four field goals this season and only missed two extra point kicks.
Brick Township, meanwhile, dropped a 28-7 loss at home on Saturday afternoon to Triton and at 5-4 will look to dodge a third straight .500 season in its final game on Thanksgiving against Brick Memorial.
Brick Memorial coach Walt Currie, whose team is 7-2, a big jump from a 4-6 record in his first season last fall, calls top-seeded South Brunswick’s offense a “hybrid” of the schemes run by both high school teams in Brick Township. “They run a wing T and some option, a combination of what Brick and we do,” Currie said. “On defense, they’re stingy. They’re fundamentally sound and do not make mistakes. They do everything right.”
That means that Brick Memorial must execute its running game off its triple option better than what Currie felt it did last Friday night. And it hopes Vin Sabba’s ankle injury suffered in that final series will not keep him off the field as the team’s top ground gainer of late against the 5-3 and 4-4 schemes shown by South Brunswick (8-1).
In the opposite bracket, Sayreville takes on West Windsor-Plainsboro South. South Brunswick beat Sayreville, 13-9, but lost to Piscataway, a team that Sayreville beat during the season.
“The key for us is run support,” said Currie. “We have to be very good and very precise on defense against their dive, their dive block and against their quarterback.”
But Currie felt “the defense and special teams won the game for us” against North Brunswick
“In the playoffs, every team is good so you need all three phases,” said Staub, who doubles on defense. “We have to be able to contain their speed.”
And it was North Brunswick’s team speed and its blitz package that Staub felt hindered Brick Memorial’s offense
Shortly after North Brunswick struck first on a 35-yard-pass play in the third quarter, Staub connected off a play action pass with slot back Glenn McGinnis on a 65-yard play down the left sidelines. Ryan Wood made a key block downfield. Loiodice kicked the extra point, his 26th in 28 attempts.
“It was a great throw and I just outran their secondary,” said McGinnis after his sixth touchdown this season.
Currie and his quarterback had full confidence that Loiodice would come through with his big kick.
“Absolutely. He’s proven himself and earned the trust of our staff and teammates,” said Currie. “We tried to put it in a position for him to win the game by running the ball to the middle of the field.”
“He’s been tremendous all year,” said Staub. “He’s a sophomore but I look to him as a senior in the way that he carries himself. I have all the confidence in him. We just wanted to get it (the ball) in his range.”
Loiodice’s only miss was a 37-yard attempt against Freehold Township.
Brick Memorial has outscored its opponents, 206-187, and looks to match its eightwin seasons it reeled off earlier this decade.
Brick Township, meanwhile, got a fiveyard touchdown run by Joe Goble, his 11th, and Pat Kearns kicked his 16th extra point of the season early in the game but the Dragons again came up empty in the state playoffs, dating back to the 2000 season. Quarterback John Applegate suffered a head injury that coach Warren Wolf said should not keep him out of the Thanksgiving game against Brick Memorial, and John Henry stepped in from there.
Henry is the third quarterback for the Green Dragons this season after Applegate was pressed into the start when Jordan Roshala did not recover well enough from his anterior cruciate ligament surgery and then reinjured his leg two games ago.
“John is a key person for us on offense, in the kick game as our punter and on defense as our safety and it was a severe loss but the difference was that we had opportunities and then committed penalties at critical times,” said Wolf, whose team has outscored its opponents, 180-178. “It became difficult. We could not do anything on offense. We didn’t play to our potential.”
But Wolf will have at least 12 days to remedy that problem.