By Justin Feil, Packet Media Group
A largely new cast will be following in the footsteps of an historic Hillsborough High School football season.
Fresh off a 9-2 season in which they won the Mid-State 38 Conference Delaware Division outright and reached the Central Jersey Group V state semifinals, the Raiders open the 2015 season 7 p.m. Friday when they host Franklin.
“Our guys are ready to go,” said Hillsborough head coach Kevin Carty Jr. “I could tell (Monday) they’re excited and ready to go. We’ll see for Friday.”
Hillsborough graduated a number of key players from last year’s team, but Carty is excited to see how a newer, quicker crew will fill their roles.
“I think our skill position players are good players and our line is doing a good job,” he said. “We have some guys that can do well at the receivers and in the backfield and the defensive backfield. It takes the line for that to work, but that has stood out in the scrimmages.”
Under center with the graduation of quarterback Eddie Trimpert will be Joe Schultz. He will have the reins on Opening Night.
“He’s pretty talented,” Carty said. “He runs well. He has a strong arm, but not a ton of experience. I think he has a chance to do well. Al Fisher, who’s a senior, will get in. He’s done a nice job and he’s a senior. He’s done enough to get in and we’ll see how it plays out. Hopefully it’ll be a strength for us. Neither guy has played a lot for us.”
They can turn and hand the ball to the Raiders’ two main running backs, Ryan Melillo or Kyle Kauffman.
“They’ll be pretty good players,” Carty said. “They were both starters at corner last year.”
The two understand the physical nature of varsity play and will be ready. The quarterbacks will be targeting Dillon Zimmerman, a big-play receiver who returns from last year. Zimmerman isn’t the only playmaker at a skill spot.
“Zimmerman is back and Jackson Parham, who played at the end of last year, has a chance to be a great player and he’s only a sophomore,” Carty said. “Zack Williams will be starting. He’s very fast. Jimmy Suseck will play tight end and receiver and he’ll be pretty good also. Out of those six guys, they’ll be good with the ball in their hands.”
Protecting them will be an offensive line that blends some experience with some youth. Brandon Nitschke, returning all-conference Hayden Panagos, returning starter Ben Pasternack, Nick Pezza and Ryan Wheaton are the front-runners for the line positions to make it possible for the skill players to be effective.
“I think we’ll have a lot of guys touching the ball,” Carty said. “Our line has played well in scrimmages. We don’t have a ton of depth. We lost some good ones. We have some good ones playing now, but not as many as last year. We have some good guys on the perimeter and we’ll get the ball in their hands and hopefully they can do some good things with it.”
When the Raiders are on defense, they will have to use some of their offensive lineman to shore up their defensive front. They also will add in Rob Toth, Omar Sultan and Kyle Richardson on the defensive line. The inside linebackers will be Paul Michinard and Matt Matson, with Panagos will and Connor Genes seeing time there as well. Dan Stoddard and Matt Doring are outside linebackers. At cornerback will be Melillo, Tyler Boatwright and Charles Amankwaa. Safeties will be Kauffman, David Ammankwaa, and Luke Jansen.
“We’re very good in the back end,” Carty said. “We have good players at every level. We have more good players, more depth of good fast athletes in the backfield. That’s a strength. We have good players at every level. I think we’ll be pretty good on defense. I think that’s a possibility.”
On special teams, the Raiders have depth with kickers Zach Eilbacher and JR Metallo, both who kicked last year as well.
“We have to replace Eddie Trimpert, our punter,” Carty said. “We’ll see how that goes.”
The Raiders have stayed relatively healthy through the preseason. They come into their first game looking to see how some of their new starters will react to their first significant action at this level. They got a taste of it with scrimmages against Linden, Woodbridge and Edison on one day, and scrimmages with JFK-Iselin and East Brunswick, and Bayonne.
“Our young guys have shown some ability,” Carty said. “Our young guys have made some plays. Hopefully that’ll continue. I think we have some guys that can make some plays with the ball.”
The emphasis through the preseason was trying to simulate the sort of action that they will see in games. With experience being the biggest thing lacking overall, the Raiders were looking for a quick primer.
“We were just trying to compete every day and get as many guys as we can ready to play,” Carty said. “If we can get a good atmosphere in practice, we’re hoping to make an atmosphere where they’re ready to play. The more we can do that, the more we can get them ready.”
The Raiders will not be trying to do things too differently with their offensive scheme. Their personnel may look different, but they are confident that they can sustain the sort of balance that helped them last year.
“I hope we can do a lot of things that we’ve done, just be good enough at doing them,” Carty said. “I’d like to be similar. We have the chance to be more explosive. We have the potential. We were very physical which will be tough to top.
“I think our guys are tough,” he added. “We lost a lot of strength. We had some guys that were strong. I don’t think we’ll have the same amount of strength. We have some big guys, but we had more last year. I don’t think we’ll lack for toughness. We have guys that hit on defense. We just have less of that physical mass and strength. We don’t have quite as many of them. We have some tough, fast, explosive guys that will hopefully be tough to overcome.”
The Raiders don’t know exactly what to expect in their first opponent. They handled Franklin last year.
“Their quarterback is a good player,” Carty said. “Their running back is a good player. He’s fast. They have a good quarterback that can run and throw, so that makes them scary. They’ll be tough all-around. I know they haven’t done as well the past couple years, but they could turn it around. They probably have more guys that played last year than we did. I know our guys know we’ll be in for a fight.”
Carty is interested to see how his players react in their first game. The Raiders come off a season in which they accomplished so much, and now Hillsborough will be trying to build on it with a lot of new faces.
“The biggest area of concern is starting experience,” Carty said. “We’re going to play a lot of young guys and a lot of guys that haven’t played. Who knows what’s going to happen in a game? You can’t count on what will happen in a game. Hopefully it’s going to work out well.”
