Howell and Marlboro were the area’s big winners on the opening night of the 2010 high school football season.
Howell High School quarterback Ryan Davies enjoyed a record-setting debut as field general of the team’s high-octane spread offense. The junior signal caller completed 22- 30 passes for 470 yards and seven touchdowns in Howell’s opening game 48-17 romp over the visiting Toms River North Mariners on Sept. 11.
The yardage and touchdown passes are single-game records at Howell.
“I was nervous before the game,” Davies said of his debut as the Rebels’ starting QB.
Those in attendance would not have known that from watching his performance. Davies, the son of Coach Cory Davies, took the Rebels down the field for a touchdown on the team’s first possession and the onslaught continued from there.
The junior said he was not really aware of the remarkable game he was having.
“You don’t really think about it during the game,” he said.
Davies, who saw limited action behind all-state quarterback Jimmy Ryan in 2009, spent the off-season getting ready for this very moment.
“I worked on getting the timing down with our receivers and I lifted in the weight room to get bigger,” he said.
The Rebels went to 7-on-7 football camps which allowed Davies and his receivers to get more comfortable with each other. When it was time to play the games for real, they were ready.
Davies showed the touch that is required for the spread offense as he throws the deep ball with accuracy and velocity. He used all of his receivers — Ryan Handy (the lone returning starter), Mike Clark, Max Fontaine, Jack Gailing (3TD) and Benton Burdin.
“We have a pretty good understanding of each other,” Davies said of his receivers.
Davies praised the Rebels’ offensive line for providing him time against a Toms River North team that was throwing everybody at him in the second half.
Coach Cory Davies said the biggest compliment he got was from the Toms River North coaches who told him that his 2010 club looked just like last year’s team. The Rebels had not missed a beat despite losing many players to graduation. That seems to be a very good sign for Howell.
Howell will play at Freehold Township at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 16. Freehold Township will be playing its home opener after a 9-0 loss at Perth Amboy High School on Sept. 11.
If anyone needed a victory last weekend it was coach Derek Sininsky’s Marlboro Mustangs, who were coming off an 0-10 season. Marlboro got what it needed with an impressive 28-0 win over J.P. Stevens High School of Edison under the lights at the Marlboro Recreation Center.
Marlboro played well on both sides of the ball. Senior Brian Rodrig shouldered the offensive load by running the ball 35 times for 210 yards.
“Once we saw that we could handle them up front, we wanted to take time off the clock,” said Sininsky, who pointed out that his team had possession of the football for two-thirds of the game.
The game plan was not for Rodrig to carry the ball 35 times. Early in the second quarter Anthony Natoli, who was sharing the carries with Rodrig, injured his elbow, leaving Rodrig to be the team’s workhorse for the game.
On defense, Nicholas Jensen highlighted a superb team effort by scoring on a fumble recovery.
“We pursued the ball and we man-handled them up front,” said Sininsky.
Marlboro will have two weeks to prepare for its next opponent, Howell. The game will be played at Marlboro High School on Sept. 25 with a 1 p.m. kickoff.
“The two weeks will help us,” said Sininsky. “We’ll have to play sound football.”
One team that needed to get off to a fast start is Manalapan. The Braves have struggled in September in recent years and those struggles continued on the evening of Sept. 11 when they fell at home to Jackson Memorial High School of Jackson, 15-8.
Now the Braves face the task of going to Middletown South on Sept. 16 looking to avoid an 0-2 start.
The Eagles, who have moved up to the Shore Conference A North Division this fall, opened their season with a 56-13 trashing of Ocean Township on the road.
The Sept. 16 game between the Eagles and the Braves is the home opener for the Eagles and a very important A North game for both teams.
Freehold High School lost at Matawan Regional High School by the deceptive score of 22-2. This was a 3-2 game late into the fourth quarter before Matawan, the defending Central Jersey Group II champion, took advantage of turnovers to score 19 points late in the game.
The Colonials will look to get into the win column on Sept. 16 with another road game, this one in Tinton Falls against Monmouth Regional High School. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. Colts Neck High School could not have started the 2010 season in a more exciting way than the Cougars did. Pat Murtha returned the opening kickoff 92 yards for a touchdown to stake the underdog Cougars to a 7-0 lead over Long Branch High School.
After the Green Wave tied the score at 7- 7 several possessions later, Victor Scalici took the ensuing kickoff 82 yards for a touchdown and a 14-7 Colts Neck lead early in the second quarter.
At that point Colts Neck had no first downs, but the Cougars found themselves leading.
However, Long Branch’s superior talent proved too much for the game Cougars to overcome. With quarterback Miles Shuler- Foster showing why he is one of the most highly recruited quarterbacks in the state, the Green Wave went on to pick up a 34-14 victory in Colts Neck.
The Cougars will take to the road on Sept. 16 to play at Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin in a 7 p.m. contest.