An explosive performance from the Colonia High School football team’s offense helped the Patriots cruise to a 35-8 victory over JFK in the Friday night season opener.
“We did what we wanted to do on offense and only had to go to the air seven times,” Colonia head coach Ben LaSala said. “It’s a new offense and there were a lot of doubts, but the kids now believe in it, and Friday’s game demonstrated what the offense is capable of.”
The new offense is a spread option attack patterned after what West Virginia’s Mountaineers run, and it proved too difficult for JFK to stop. Colonia’s Eric LeGrand amassed 101 yards on just 10 carries to go with his two touchdowns. At linebacker, a position LeGrand will play at Rutgers next year, he was just as stellar, with 15 tackles and a pair of sacks.
“He’s simply a man among boys,” LaSala said. “He was all over the place defensively. The other kids feed off him, and we were hitting like we used to two or three years ago. We swarmed to the ball.”
LeGrand was able to be a monster on defense because LaSala was careful not to overextend LeGrand at fullback.
“We were able to substitute our skill players more than we’ve been able to do in the recent past,” LaSala said. “It will be important for us to continue this throughout the season.”
LeGrand’s teammate in the Patriot backfield, Cory Jacik, also had a big day carrying the ball. Jacik put Colonia’s first points on the board with a 20-yard running touchdown. LeGrand upped his team’s lead to 21-0 after a pair of scores, and by the time the halftime whistle sounded, the game was virtually in the bag.
Running back Ryan DonDiego was yet another force that JFK had no answer for as he helped set up LeGrand’s second score just prior to the half. DonDiego tallied 20 yards of the 55-yard scoring drive.
“Having Ryan back in our lineup after he missed all of last season is huge,”
LaSala said. “While players follow
LeGrand’s lead, they get an emotional
charge out of Ryan.”
Kennedy’s lone score came in the fourth quarter when quarterback
Joe Creighton connected
with Derek Jordan on a
15-yard pass play.
Despite the lopsided win,
Colonia will have some areas to
work on prior to this week’s meeting against visiting Monroe.
“Our defense suffered a lapse of concentration for the first five minutes of the second half,” LaSala said. “We still have to learn to play for 48 minutes and do some sharpening. We did a good job for 40 minutes.”
The defense will need to be in top form against a Monroe team that had little problem putting points on the board in its dramatic 29-28 overtime win over South Brunswick.
“They are a pretty physical team and they’ve beaten us the last two years,” LaSala said. “This will be our only home game this season, so we want to come out and play hard.”