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MANVILLE: Football kicks off against arch rival

Mustangs head to Bound Brook on Friday night

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Manville’s football team is coming together just in time for its season opener Friday night against arch-rival Bound Brook, football coach Pat Gorbatuk told his players at practice’s end Tuesday.
Coach Gorbatuk said the Mustangs – 38 strong, a relatively large number for the borough school – will look differently from last year’s pass-oriented attack. This year Coach Gorbatuk said his team will be strong in the box on both sides of the ball. They’ll look to run the ball first, and should be stout in defending against the rush.
This year’s offense will be run by one of two quarterbacks. Junior Jeremy Nurnberger or sophomore Daniel Bickar.
Bound Brook should prove to be an emotional tussle for Manville. Last year in the season opener, Manville fell just short, 34-33, after mounting a furious comeback.
Off the field, at the end of last school year, the two schools traded incidents that might be called pranks. Someone entered Bound Brook’s High School and hung a banner from the roof. A week later Bound Brook teens were stopped and charged with spray painting graffiti outside walls at Manville High School.
Injuries defused Manville’s passing attack four games into last season, but Coach Gorbatuk, in his fourth season at the helm, was heartened by the way his team finished out last fall’s campaign. Last year, after four mid-season games in which they only scored three total TDs, Manville (1-9) lost a toughie, 22-18, to Brearley (5-5) and then coming back to win, 20-0, the next week against Dayton.
Friday’s game starts at 7 p.m. at Bound Brook’s LaMonte Field.
"It’s always important for us to stay healthy," said the coach, noting that depth is always a problem for a small squad.