Big Play Second Half Propels Ramblers To Easy Win, 41-13
CARTERET, NJ–Towards the end of the third quarter, in the midst of Bishop Ahr’s first scoring drive of the game, the Carteret High School Marching Band played the classic Temptations song, “Cloud Nine.” The late 60s tune from that magical Motown group couldn’t have been more appropriate to describe Carteret’s offense on this night.
After a first half that was reminiscent of Carteret’s win at South Plainfield in week three, the Ramblers dialed up the big play in the third quarter, and broke the game open. The running of tailback Jerod Johnson along with the passing of Tyler Rodriguez finally was able to break the back of the Trojans defense, and put the game away. Johnson ended the game with four rushing touchdowns and an 80 yard kickoff return for another score while Rodriguez threw for a touchdown and completed another long pass to set up one of Johnson’s two third quarter touchdowns as the Ramblers won easily, 41-13 at The Pit.
For the game, the Ramblers had 15 plays of 11 yards or more from its running attack, passing game, and special teams. Johnson had seven touches that resulted in 271 total yards and five touchdowns. His four rushing TDs were of 11, 20, 49, and 66 yards. Rodriguez completed a 68 yard strike to Erik Fruscella for the Ramblers only other score, and set up one of Johnson’s TD runs with a 52 yard pass to sophomore Brandon Gilder, who also partially blocked a punt late in the first period to set up Johnson’s first touchdown early in the second quarter, and then intercepted a David Holder pass to halt what had been a promising BGA drive.
Carteret fullback, Naji Johnson also made some big plays on the ground and in the air with four touches of at least 11 yards while reserve tailback, Devontay Roberts scooted for 55 yards late in the game to wrap things up for the Ramblers, who improved to 6-0 heading into a huge White Division Clash next week at Colonia. The Patriots defeated Raritan of Monmouth County and the Shore Conference by a 13-3 score on Friday night to put them at 7-0. The Trojans didn’t get on the board until early in the fourth when Holder found Nelson Thomas for a 9 yard TD pass just six seconds into the final frame.
After Johnson scooted for his fourth and final rushing touchdown of the game at the eleven minute mark for a 34-6 lead, Mike Viggiano entered the game for Ahr, and threw a 62 yard touchdown strike to Kaysaan Neal with 9:24 to play for a 21 point Rambler lead. However, moments later, BGA kicked a short kick to Johnson, who then ran right, and scampered up the Carteret sideline for the game’s final score. While Carteret’s offense was in high octane mode, Bishop Ahr was struggling offensively. Although the Trojans had a couple touchdowns, a nice 44 yard hook up to give them a chance to tie the game in the first half, and only trailed by a score at the intermission they were out of sync.
Penalties on running plays and kickoff returns by Kevin Momat as well as some delay of game penalties, troubles getting the right number of players on the field a couple of times, and the inability to get Thomas going on the ground, hampered BGA’s efforts. Give credit though to a stout Carteret defense led by Gilder, Javier Gonzalez, and Josue Romero for shutting down Thomas. One of the penalties that put Ahr in a tough spot occurred in the first half on a nice run back of a punt by Momat. The block in the back penalty put the Trojans on their own seven yard line. After a three and out series, Mike Jensen came on to punt, and his kick was partially blocked by Gilder with 49 seconds to go in the period. Several plays later, Johnson ran left from 11 yards out for the first score of the game.
Of the 54 total points scored in the game, 47 of them came in the final 22:39. Carteret had the ball for a total of approximately 20 minutes, and had scoring drives that lasted for only 14, 20, 32, 50, and 56 seconds. Meanwhile, the Trojans had four possessions where they went three and out. With the loss, Bishop Ahr dropped to 4-3 on the season.