Middletown South Rolls Past Marlboro

By Jim Hintelmann
Middletown Township – Middletown South has not won a division championship since 2009 nor an NJSIAA sectional title since 2006, but that drought could come to end this year as the Eagles appear ready to make a serious run at both titles.
Unbeaten South (3-0) played an almost flawless game Friday night with a 49- 14 A North Division rout of Marlboro, building up a 49-0 lead after three quarters before turning the game over to the reserves in the final period.
“Marlboro has a young team,” said South coach Steve Antonucci, “but this is what you have to do in every game. You can’t do anything less because we have to play our best in every game.”
The only thing negative for South is that standout running back Cole Rogers missed his second consecutive star t due to a shoulder injury suffered in practice.
“We don’t know when he will be back,” said Antonucci. “We hope that it will be soon.”

Fortunately for South, it had a more than capable replacement in junior James McCarthy, who scored three touchdowns while doing a standout job defensively at linebacker for the Eagles.
“He’s a very physical player,” said Antonucci. “He is also exceedingly fast and competes in track.”
South (3-0) scored on its first five possessions with McCarthy scoring the first touchdown on a 52-yard run on South’s second play from scrimmage. Quarterback Matt Mosquera kicked the first of seven extra points.
“Cole and me compliment each other,” said McCarthy, who starred on South’s unbeaten and unscored-upon freshman team two years ago “Ever since we were in the eighth grade, we knew that we would be very good in our junior and senior years.”
McCarthy made it 14-0 a few minutes later with a 16- yard run and Mosquera threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to Jeff Lewandowski just before the end of the quarter to give South a 21-0 lead.

“Middletown South is as good as its gets,” said Marlboro coach Jason Dagato. “They are well coached and very talented. All I could do is ask my team to play its best game of the season and let the scoreboard take care of itself. We have a mix of seniors and underclassmen along with a new offense, it will take time to jell.”
McCarthy scored his third touchdown late in the second quarter with a 3-yard run after Mosquera set it up with a 29-yard pass to Jack Uhrig.
Mosquera closed out the first half scoring with a 48- yard touchdown pass to Samson Dube to lift the score to 35-0. The mercy rule, which keeps the clock running after a team has a 35- point lead, then went into effect in the second half.
South played its reserve through most of the second half, but still scored a pair of defensive touchdowns on interception returns of 70 and six yards by Tom Coffey and Maxx Imsho respectively.
Marlboro got on the board with two late touchdowns against the South reserves on a 6-yard run by Cameron
Caorsi and a 5-yard pass from Mike Wolff to Ryan Cassidy.

South travels to Freehold Township Friday and Antonucci expects a harder game. Freehold lost to defending A Division North champion Manalapan 21-20 on a deflected touchdown pass with a second left last week.
“They have a good team,” he said “but we are taking the games one at a time.”
The big game for South will be Oct. 16 when it plays host to Manalapan. The Braves have won five division titles in a row, and are the defending NJSIAA Central Jersey Group V champions.