Tag: football

The non-public brackets are out and it’s time to begin the road to MetLife Stadium. Red Bank Catholic and St. John Vianney both earned home games for the opening round.

RUMSON – Gabe Kemp’s high school career is exactly seven games old, yet the Red Bank Catholic freshman running back has a stat sheet that looks like a senior dominating the Shore Conference.

RED BANK – Red Bank Catholic’s youth movement showed it can shine brightest under pressure. Behind standout performances from freshmen quarterback Rahmir Rivera and running back Gabe Kemp, the Caseys outlasted Holmdel 29-28 in a Shore Conference showdown that lived up to its billing as a “war at the shore.”

LITTLE SILVER – Sometimes it takes a while for a first-year head coach to connect with his team and build the trust and culture that makes a winning program. At Red Bank Regional, Tyler Karalewich had the daunting task of filling the massive shoes of Shane Fallon, one of the Shore’s all-time great football coaches.

RUMSON – Jack Cannon talked in the preseason about taking the Holmdel football program to new heights. It’s hard to believe it, but it’s almost mission accomplished in week two of the high school football season.

RUMSON – Owen O’Toole engineered the Rumson-Fair Haven offense for three years, winning three sectional championships and finishing with a perfect 13-0 state title season and over 5,000 passing yards. So how do you replace one of the Shore Conference’s all-time great quarterbacks?

BRICK – Just like Rumson-Fair Haven’s 2025 high school football season opening week game, its matchup against Brick Memorial was hyped as a top-five Shore Conference showdown.

On the same day football legends Nick Saban of Alabama and Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks stepped away from iconic coaching careers, it seemed fitting that Steve Antonucci also made his exit.

Last year, Red Bank Catholic had a halftime lead on DePaul Catholic and saw the dream of back-to-back state titles slip away in a 19-17 loss. A year later, the Caseys were caught in the same scenario but finished the job with an elite defensive performance.

Soccer – or football as it’s known outside the United States – the world’s most popular sport, has historically lagged behind American football in viewership in the U.S. But now “the beautiful game” (the sport’s genteel nickname) is more popular than ever in the States as more and more fans develop deep bonds with European clubs.