By Ed Birch, Special Writer
The South Brunswick Vikings scored an easy victory over the J.P. Stevens Hawks 46-20 last Friday evening at the Hawks home field.
A 36-yard scoring pass from the Edison school’s quarterback Luke Jacob to Karleek Sutton put the Hawks up 6-0.
The Vikings then went to work, as Dante Strickland, the Syracuse-bound star running back scored four touchdowns, many at will, against the Hawks defense.
Before the end of the first quarter, Strickland was credited with two touchdown runs of seven and 48 yards to give the Vikings a 12-6 lead.
Vikings quarterback Amir Johnson added a 10-yard run to put the Vikings up 19-6 at halftime.
The Vikings third quarter saw a Strickland run a total of 54 yards and a Matt Golden 44-yard scoring run.
A 16-yard run by the Hawks J. Blacknail brought the score to 32-13 after the third quarter.
The final quarter saw a short quarterback keep run by Amir Johnson and a final 73-yard run by Strickland to ice the Vikings victory.
A Deandre Perkins pass reception closed out the scoring in the contest.
Strickland finished the game with 23 carries for 208 total rushing yards.
He also added one pass reception for 38 yards. Matt Golden was credited with 40 rushing yards. Quarterback Amir Johnson had 39 rushing yards and Phil Campbell had 32 rushing yards.
"We really put the game together in the second half," said Head Coach Joe Goerge after the game. "We made some high school mistakes, but we can enjoy the big win. We have to save our efforts for next week against Old Bridge."
"I felt like no one could stop me once I had the ball," said Johnson after the contest. "We really need to be ready for next week against Old Bridge. We really executed very good this week."
"Coach prepared us well. I felt like I was running at will with the way our front line blocked for me," said Strickland. "We showed everyone that we have a lot of scoring weapons today."
Coach Goerge said he was anxious to get to play back home after two weeks on the road.
"I just cannot wait for next week against Old Bridge when we finally open up on our new turf field," said Goerge.
The Vikings open up the home season at 12 noon tomorrow with a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new turf field taking place at 11:40 a.m.

