Good afternoon everyone. Well, here is the reason why it has taken so long to get the summaries up from this weekend’s scrimmages. After watching South Brunswick take on Neptune in a pre-season exhibition on Saturday morning, I traveled out to Rutgers Stadium to take in the Championship Game of the North Jersey Section 2 Group IV State Championship Football Game between Piscataway and Hunterdon Central. Going through the entire regular season and the first two rounds of the playoffs unblemished, the Chiefs came away empty as they were defeated by the Red Devils of Hunterdon Central and the Delaware West Division of the Skyland Conference in the title game, 23-13.
The difference in this game was the fact that Hunterdon Central made the plays that they had to make, especially on third and fourth down while Piscataway wasn’t able to. A key second half P-Way turnover that set up the game clinching score halted a great drive by a Chief team that did move the ball well, particularly on the ground, but couldn’t gone it done in the air. A penalty for Piscataway on the previous play also helped in setting up the swing in momentum. Similarly in the first half, the Chiefs hurt themselves with a penalty on a punt play, which forced them to punt again, and that produced a bad snap, and a safety. Those two plays along with a missed extra point on a subsequent touchdown by P-Way proved to be the margin of defeat on the scoreboard. Below are some video highlights of the game, which I had some problems in putting together yesterday causing the delay in other things I wanted to do.