By Jim Hintelmann
MIDDLETOWN – Middletown High School North’s football team entered the current season on an optimistic note with its top scorers returning from last year’s 3-7 team, but the Lions suffered a setback when they dropped a 26-14 decision to Freehold Boro Friday night.
The game matched two of the better runners in the Shore Conference with North’s Chad Freshnock and Freehold’s Josh Dixon, and both lived up to expectations. Freshnock gained 251 yards rushing and scored both North touchdowns while Dixon rushed for 217 yards and four touchdowns.
Dixon, though, had a slightly better supporting cast and that was enough for the Colonials to score a big win in the season debut in the A Division North.
“Just about everybody picked us to lose,” Freehold coach Dave Ellis said. “The most impressive thing tonight was the resilience. We kept rallying every single time. I told the kids that no one was going to give them anything.
“The seniors got up in the locker room and talked about not wanting to lose any more,” he said. “We were like a family tonight.”
Freehold’s defense couldn’t stop Freshnock, but it did a brilliant job in holding sophomore quarterback Don Glenn to just 11 completions in 26 attempts for just 62 yards. He passed for more than 1,500 yards and 15 touchdowns as a freshman a year ago.
“We mixed up our coverage a little bit,” Ellis said. “We gave up a lot of rushing yardage, but our secondary is our strength this year and they did a great job.”
Freehold gave an indication of what was to come early in the game when Glenn threw a pass in the flat behind the line of scrimmage. The catch was fumbled with Freehold recovering on the North 26. Dixon scored five plays later on a 12-yard run.
Dixon followed that up just before the end of the first quarter when he scored on a 53-yard touchdown run to give Freehold a 13-0 lead.
North finally got on the board when Freshnock got free on a 66-yard touchdown run. The first of two Nick Banta extra points cut the Freehold lead to 13-7.
With 13 seconds remaining in the half and Freehold having the ball at midfield, the expectation was that it would hold the ball, but Dixon took it on a hand-off and ran 51 yards down the right sideline for his third touchdown of the game and a 20-7 lead.
“Nobody believed that we would win the game,” Dixon said, “but we wanted to prove everyone wrong. We wanted some respect and we will be ready for any team this season.”
Following a scoreless third quarter, North narrowed Freehold’s lead to 20-14 on a 10-yard touchdown run by Freshnock, but Dixon got an insurance touchdown with a 60-yard run on the next Freehold series.
North will play Friday, Sept. 12, at Perth Amboy.
