It took a few weeks and a touchdown in overtime, but Metuchen High School won its first game of the year — and the first ever under head coach Michael Warnock — when it scored a 9-3 victory over Keyport High School.
The Bulldogs pulled out the dramatic victory on Oct. 21 in Keyport.
Metuchen’s Gio Ortega kicked a 20-yard field goal midway through the second quarter to take a 3-0 lead, but the Bulldogs were unable to add any points in the second half.
Keyport’s Jahmir Jones connected on a 35-yard field-goal attempt with 11 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter to knot the score at 3-3 and send the game into overtime.
After Keyport failed to score on their first possession of the extra session, the Bulldogs received the ball.
Metuchen then drove and punched in a 5-yard touchdown run by tailback Jaden Rojas to win the game. Rojas totaled 79 rushing yards in the game.
With the victory, Metuchen improved its record to 1-5 this season.
“It feels great,” Warnock said. “I’m just a first-year head coach getting his first win. These guys have been fighting all year long. We keep getting better. I couldn’t be happier for these guys, to get that first win and to get that monkey off their back. And now we just keep on fighting.”
Although it is Warnock’s first year as head coach of the football team, he has been a math teacher at the high school for 15 years and was an assistant coach with Metuchen’s football team for six years before joining the Highland Park High School coaching staff in 2010.
He returned to Metuchen for this season.
Although he was thrilled with the victory, Warnock still wants the team to keep improving.
“The biggest thing is just closing out drives,” he said. “It’s just being more consistent from an overall basis. But the fight that I saw in these kids today and the work ethic that I saw today, I know that they want more, and they’re just going to keep on working to get it done.”
The coach wants his team to focus on the opponents ahead and to work harder to get the next win.
“Just keep fighting,” Warnock said. “We got a tough road up ahead still. There’s a lot of tough teams left to play, and we just need to keep doing our job.”
Junior quarterback and free safety Will Hronich was relieved to finally get a win, noting that Metuchen had to fight all year for that moment.
“Every week, we’ve been struggling and we’ve been getting closer and closer,” Hronich said. “This week, this group came together and it all worked out.”
Hronich, who had 61 passing yards against Keyport, believes the Bulldogs have the talent to win but might need to work on their discipline to take that next step as a team.
“We have the talent,” Hronich said. “We just need to execute, eliminate penalties and hold onto the ball.”
Hronich stated that now that Metuchen has won a game, it’s imperative to use what was learned to help secure more victories.
“We just have to prove what we can do,” Hronich said. “We need to come out here and play hard every game.”
Junior quarterback Matthew Twigg of Keyport praised the defense of his fellow Red Raiders against Metuchen.
“Our defense played really well,” Twigg said. “It was all on the offense. [Our] offense couldn’t keep pushing. We were lucky we had a great defense to keep us in it. We just couldn’t get it done in the end.”
Twigg put the burden on his shoulders, stating he needs to get better to help the offense improve.
“I want to improve on reading my receivers,” Twigg said. “I missed a couple of receivers on open looks today. We need to step up our blocking as well, so our running backs have bigger holes.
“I need to do better.”
Twigg believes that despite Keyport dropping to 1-6 on the season, the team can still finish the year strong.
“We want to win out,” he said. “I don’t want to lose a single game from here on out.”
Keyport head coach Jay Graham was proud of his defense against Metuchen.
“Our defense shut them down pretty much the whole game,” he said. “The field goal was the only thing they got all game, and that was on a turnover. So we were lights out defensively. We have to learn how to offensively move the ball. We’re not doing a great job of that.”
Although Graham admits the offense needs to improve, he believes he has a lot of talent on that side of the ball, albeit, very young talent.
“They’re young,” the coach said. “[With] our front linemen, we lost four senior guys, and that’s killed us up front. They’re young, but they’re capable. We’re just inconsistent.”
Graham hopes his team can turn it around for the last few games of the season.
“Keansburg is tough and Shore [Regional] is tough,” Graham said about Keyport’s final two opponents this season. “I think we can play and beat anybody, but we can lose to anybody too. It’s the inconsistency thing that we have going on right now. But, like I said, they’re young. Hopefully, they’re learning from these experiences and work harder to get better.”
Keyport is home to Keansburg High School on Oct. 27, while Metuchen travels to Dunellen High School the same evening. Both games kick off at 7 p.m.