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HILLSBOROUGH: Tough losses will harden Raider football next fall 

By Justin Feil, Packet Media Group
The Hillsborough High School football team had a tough act to follow in 2015.
Even as the frustrations of narrow losses mounted, there was only a resolve to do better. It culminated with the Raiders winning their final two games of the season.
“It was great for us to finish on a positive note,” said Raiders head coach Kevin Carty Jr. after concluding a 4-6 season. “The Montgomery loss gave us a bad taste, so to finish up with two wins is a real positive. They were two exciting wins too. Both, we came back in the second half. We had some young guys and some seniors make some big plays that give us some momentum going into the offseason.”
Following a loss to Montgomery, the Raiders regrouped to play well enough to sweep their final two opponents. Hillsborough closed October with a cruel 21-14 loss to Montgomery, but rebounded to top Plainfield, 22-18, and then finished with a 20-16 victory over East Brunswick in a state consolation game.
“I think it shows that our guys weren’t going to give up even after losing a bunch of close ones,” Carty said. “Our guys found a way and got better. We found a way to win some close ones at the end of the year. It was nice for the guys to get it right at the very end. For the younger guys, it showed they got something out of that early experience and hopefully this is something we can do now in the future.”
The future looks good for the Raiders, who will return almost two dozen players that saw significant action. They absorbed the lessons from a season that saw Hillsborough have a chance in every contest except one. Except for a loss to Bridgewater-Raritan, Hillsborough was within a touchdown in each of its losses.
“It’s frustrating, especially when you go through week by week,” Carty said. “Every one of them kind of kills you. You think you have to get one soon. I guess I’d rather have that than get blown out, if I had to choose.
“It’s more beneficial time for everyone who played. The seniors got in exciting games and, for the younger guys, that’s how you get better, by playing in tight games like that. Hopefully we got that from it. We’re still at the point looking back at the season that it’s frustrating we didn’t get some of those early ones and met a few more of our goals this year.”
Hillsborough had quite a lot of turnover after an historic 2014 campaign that saw it make the playoffs and advance two rounds. The Raiders tried to lean on the players who had experience from that season. The senior class set the tone.
“They made some really big plays,” Carty said. “We had some guys that provided good leadership, some guys who played in some really big games a year ago and they were able to pass that experience along to some of the younger guys and they had some good production. Ryan Melillo had 250 yards in the last game; that’s an awesome performance to go out on. A lot of them provided a lot of good leadership — Hayden Panagos and Al Fisher and Dillon Zimmerman. A lot of those guys are really good leaders and players.”
Panagos, who has committed to play fullback and long snap at Bryant University, is the only Raiders senior who has already figured out his plans for next year. Others will follow suit and also likely have the chance to play in the annual all-star Basilone Bowl. They kept standards high and leave Hillsborough in the hands of the rising underclassmen.
“I’m really excited about that aspect,” Carty said. “While I wish we did better this year, we got a lot of playing time for a lot of guys this year and a lot of guys made really good plays. We played about 21 or 22 guys that are coming back that played significant time this year. We have to get better, but we weren’t that far away. That’s encouraging.
“They’re already taking it into the off-season to really work to get better. They got a taste and they realize what they have to do, what they have to get better at, but it’s attainable. Even in the past couple weeks, we had some guys really hitting it hard and I think that’ll carry us through. That’ll be an advantage that will pay off for us. We have a lot of sophomores and juniors a lot of experience in tight games. These guys have played a lot of important time and I think that can only pay off for next year when we can get physically better.”
Getting physically stronger is a point of emphasis this off-season for the Raiders. In playing so many younger kids, they gave up size and strength advantage they had the year before.
“We were hoping some of our skills could overcome it this year, but we just came up short a lot of the time,” Carty said. “I think our guys recognize that that are coming back. We’re going to use this year in the weight room and hopefully we’ll come back next year a lot more physical team.”
Carty sees no glaring holes that will have to be replaced from this year’s graduating class. He is hoping that the depth the Raiders had shows up as the rising seniors and juniors slide into bigger roles. Even on special teams, where the Raiders will lose kicker Zach Eilbacher, they have another player groomed to take over full-time. Punter Matt Hendrix will be back, too.
“We really had guys older and younger at all spots,” Carty said. “Obviously, we’ll miss some of these good players, but it’s not like we had them all in one area.”
Those players eligible to return have plenty to motivate them over the off-season. They know how competitive they were in their losses and how many of their disappointing results could have been flip-flopped. And they know what it took to finish strong to give them further encouragement for next year.
“We just made the plays we needed to at the end,” Carty said. “I couldn’t tell you why. Unless you chalk some of those early ones up to inexperience and we gained some experience as it went on. Sometimes things didn’t go our way in the early ones, and we got a few breaks in the end ones.
“I think it shows the resilience of our guys — how hard they can fight – but I think they fought pretty hard in the early ones too. That wasn’t really an issue. I think we were always fighting. Maybe it shows they kept fighting and we got some good ones at the end.” 