By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
The West Windsor-Plainsboro High North football team knows it will be facing a tall order when it opens play in the North Jersey, Section 2 Group 4 playoffs tonight at Middletown South.
While the Knights have been a prolific scoring team themselves this year, they face a Middletown South team that takes prolific to a whole different level.
The Eagles opened the season by scoring 42 or more points in six straight games. They’ll head into tonight’s game with a perfect 8-0 mark, having outscored the opposition, 322-52, to earn the No. 1 seed in the section.
“You like to play the best teams and that is what we’re doing,” WW-P North coach Jeff Reilly said. “One of our goals as a program was to be above .500 and we have five wins right now. Our second goal was to make states and we earned the right to be in that position and be one of the top eight teams.
The Knights are 5-4 and have been pretty good on the offensive end themselves. They have scored 108 points in their last three games, average 30 points a game in their five wins, and have averaged 25 points a game overall this season.
While the Knights will play in the state playoffs tonight, Montgomery, Princeton and West Windsor-Plainsboro South will all play sectional crossover games. Montgomery, which narrowly missed out on the eighth spot in the Central Jersey Group 5 playoffs, was scheduled to host Monroe on Thursday night. Princeton will host Millburn on Saturday at 1 p.m. and WW-P South will play at Scotch Plains-Fanwood on Saturday at 1 p.m.
For WW-P North, the challenge of facing the team ranked No. 1 in the state by some will be a big step for the program.
“They run the same style offense and same style defense as we do,” Reilly said. “They are a traditional powerhouse and we are a young program. We’re happy to be in the position we are in. We’ve won three in a row to be able to go and play a game like this is special for our team.”
The Knights will give Middletown South plenty to think about as it prepares for the game. On offense, North has a three-pronged attack that can come at you a number of different ways. Quarterback Malik Thompson has thrown for 13 touchdowns, rushed for three others and also scored via kick returns and on defense. Running back CJ Markisz has rushed for close to 1,000 yards and scored 12 touchdowns. And John Owens has caught nine touchdown passes and also added special teams and defensive touchdowns.
“All year long we have had the big three with CJ, Malik and John Owens,” Reilly said. “At the beginning of the season we thought we would be a Power-I tam but we knew we had the athletes to do this and make the guys double threats. We have relied on the big play all year. Malik, John and CJ have been doing it all year.
“With our game plan that is what we try to do. We are not sugar coating it. We’ll try to put them in a position to make things happen.”
In Middletown South, the Knights face a team that has allowed just 17 points in its last five games.
“We know this is a different style of football we’re facing and we know we have our hands full,” Reilly said. “We have had some interesting offensive games this year. Our Allentown game had a total of 136 combined points. We played another game in a quagmire and then the next game we had big plays all over. So we have seen everything this year. It’s been a very exciting year.
“We’ll go to Middletown South with less than 30 guys dressed. They’ll have 80 kids dressed and a packed house. But we’ll do the best we can. This is what you play for and we’re proud of what we have done so far this year. It should be interesting.”
