By: Sean Moylan Sports Writer
Florence’s most recent quest to win two Burlington County Pop Warner titles in one day ended when Delran defeated the Florence 120-pounders, 28-6, in the Pop Warner Football League of Burlington County championship game, played at Cinnaminson High this past Saturday night.
Earlier on Saturday afternoon, the Florence 160-pounders had won a championship with a 13-6 win over Delran. Unfortunately, the temperature had dropped to 25 degrees by Saturday night, and the Florence 120-pounders had trouble holding onto a rock hard, cold ball and, consequently, they turned the ball over too many times to make a serious run at Delran.
“We fumbled the ball four times in the first half which led to Delran scores. Delran led 22-0 at the half. We pretty much shut them in the second half, but by that time it was too late,” said Mike Brodock, the excellent head coach of the Florence 120-pound Pop Warner football squad. “I don’t mind if we play our best game and lose, but when you put the ball on the ground six times that’s too many.”
The highlight of the game for the Flashes came when Jazmir Best scored a second-half touchdown on a running play.
“He’s (Best) our go-to back and he scored in the third quarter. But by that time it was already 28-0,” noted Brodock, whose team missed out on a golden opportunity to make an early statement on its first possession of the game. “We got the ball first and we had a pretty good kick return to the 50 yard line.”
A quick Florence fumble ended that drive and gave Delran all of the momentum, which it used to its advantage.
Nonetheless, Brodock’s club had an excellent season and ended the year with a 6-4 record, which included a fabulous 14-12 semi-final playoff victory over Hamilton North.
“The team we played last week (Hamilton North) had eliminated the second seed, which was Cinnaminson,” added Brodock, who said going into this past Saturday’s game that his Flashes would need to play error-free ball to beat Delran, a team which topped Florence 19-7 in a regular-season contest which was actually a very close battle much of the way.
Last year Brodock’s squad made it to the second round of the playoffs and posted a 5-5 record. This year Brodock had many of those same kids back, so he and his assistant coaches, Scott Meredith and Joe Foga, developed a special bond with their most recent group of players. In fact, everyone still likes being around each other and a pizza party is in the works to celebrate another excellent season.
“Our kids matured a lot over the last few weeks of the regular season. We relied on a team concept to pull us through,” said Brodock. “It’s sad to see some of the kids we’ve had the last two or three years moving on. But we have a new head coach of the 90’s named James Earle, who played college football and who has coached before, who really knows what he’s doing. He’s really going to help us because those guys who are coming up to me know how to play football.”
New coaches or old coaches, Florence just knows how to develop good football players.
