By Jim Hintelmann
HAZLET – A thunderstorm that delayed Friday night’s football game for an hour-and-a-half failed to prevent unbeaten Red Bank Regional from winning its biggest game of the season.
Using a balanced offense coupled with another strong effort from its defensive unit, the Bucs rolled to a 30-14 victory to set up its huge B North game against unbeaten Red Bank Catholic tomorrow.
“This shows the character of this team,” said Red Bank coach Nick Giglio. “We had that storm last week and now this one tonight, but we came through. Our defense was excellent tonight.
“In the past, we didn’t make the big stops and that would be reflective in the score,” he said. “Now we are making the stops and that carries over to the offense.”
The game started at 8:30 p.m. and didn’t finish until almost 11 p.m.
A big surprise this year for the Bucs is the kicking game of junior Jack O’Connor, who kicked three field goals of 30, 22 and 42 yards along with three extra points, He has five field goals overall for the season.
“He’s been a big weapon for us,” said Giglio, “He had been playing soccer, but decided to come for football last year. We think he’ll even get better.”
Another key for Red Bank was containing Raritan’s high scoring Derek Ernst, who has scored nine touchdowns this year.
Ernst scored one of the Raritan touchdowns and rushed for 147 yards, but it took 27 carries to do it.
“Ernst is a very hard runner with speed and we tried to keep him to the outside,’ said Giglio. “We mixed up our defense a lot on him.”
back Rory Sullivan (10). Photo: Sean Simmons
Red Bank scored on its first series of the game. Helped by a 28-yard pass from quarterback Jack Navitsky to Sadiq Palmer, it reached the Raritan 1-yard line. A penalty pushed the ball back to the 15, but O’Connor kicked the first of his field goals for a 3-0 lead.
Raritan couldn’t move following the kickoff and Red Bank marched 71 yards in eight plays for its next score, a 22-yard field goal by O’Connor. Alim Godsey set it up with a 44-yard run.
Red Bank made it 13-0 the next time it had the ball with Navitsky throwing a 20-yard touchdown pass to Matt Reardon.
After being stopped by the tough Red Bank defense in the first half, Raritan finally found its offense in the third quarter with Ernst racing 60 yards down the right sideline in front of the Raritan bench for a touchdown. Quarterback Marc Carnivale passed to Mason Sheehan for the two-point conversion to cut the Red Bank lead to 16-8.
Three plays later Raritan had a good chance to at least tie the game when Jordan Smith intercepted a Red Bank pass and returned it to the Buc 6.
The Buc defense, though dug in and in two plays lost six yards. On third down, Palmer picked off a Raritan pass in the end zone to end the threat.
“After Ernst scored his touchdown we knew that we had to fix our defense, and we did it,” said lineman Sean Naiman, one of the many defensive stars of the game for the Bucs.
Red Bank came right back and Godsey scored on a 3-yard run for a 23-8 lead. A 30-yard pass from Navitsky to Teddy Mitchell was the big play in the drive.
Raritan still wouldn’t give up and answered with a 15-yard touchdown pass from Jonathan Rodriguez to Nick Pasquin, but a pass for two points was incomplete.
Red Bank then put the game out of reach with a minute left when Palmer scored on a 40-yard touchdown run.
