BORDENTOWN (N.J.) — The Overbrook High School football team didn't appear too fond of the saying, ‘it’s five o’clock somewhere.’
The Rams traveled to Bordentown for a 5 p.m. kickoff on Friday night and experienced a sluggish start. The result was a 13-point halftime deficit.
As the sun began to fade in the distance and the temperature dropped, the Overbrook football team decided to heat up.
The Rams reeled off 20 unanswered points in the second half to surge past Bordentown, 20-13, in a West Jersey Football League matchup.
“In that first half we just weren’t ourselves,” Overbrook coach Frank Wilczynski said. “I don’t know if it was because of a five o’clock kickoff, or whatever it was, we were just flat. Offensively, we couldn’t get into a rhythm.”
Quarterback DeAngello Conquest completed one pass on nine attempts in the first half for 14 yards. The second half saw Conquest complete 10 out of his 14 attempts for 164 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
“I’m proud that we came back,” Conquest said. “We lost last week so this was our ‘get back game.’ We started off a little slow, flat. But after we came back from halftime we picked it up a lot.”
Zaphee Griggs hauled in a 19-yard reception to set up a five-yard rushing score by Jayson Chavous to give Overbrook a 20-13 lead. Griggs finished with five receptions for 44 yards and was a defensive leader for the Rams when dropping into coverage.
Chavous’ touchdown proved to be the deciding score.
Bordentown took over with 6:09 left in regulation and moved 31 yards downfield on eight plays before a deflected pass on fourth down terminated the Scotties’ comeback attempt with 1:05 left to play.
“It was a money down,” Griggs said. “We knew we had to get the stop. “So we manned up, (Dillon Davis-Dixon) came off the edge and he batted it down and that was the ballgame.”
The Scotties struck first when quarterback Dennis Morolda rolled out to his left and dished a screen pass to Michael Poinsett en route to a 39-yard touchdown with 1:54 left in the first quarter.
Bordentown maintained a touchdown lead until standout running back Kerry Nicholas punched in an 8-yard touchdown to extend the lead to 13-0 with 8:05 left in the second quarter.
The senior racked up 72 rushing yards on 12 rushes in the first half before an ankle injury sidelined him for the remainder of the contest. The Scotties held their own up front, but struggled to gain chunks of yardage on early downs with their primary ball carrier unavailable.
“We have to learn how to finish games,” Bordentown coach Skip Edwards said. “Every game is going to be this way. It’s going to be close games. We’re not running away with any games. We were shuffling people here and there, we were missing people here and there. It just became a little chaotic for us at times.”
The Scotties dropped to 0-1. Edwards’ squad will host Maple Shade in a WJFL Freedom Division showdown next Friday.
Overbrook evened its record at 1-1 after suffering a season-opening loss to Bernards in Week 0. The Rams will visit Gloucester in a WJFL Colonial Division bout on September 9.
Overbrook is hopeful that Friday’s triumph is a sign of things to come.
“We’re not gonna give up,” Conquest said. “We’re gonna play all four quarters. That’s the type of team we are.”
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