NJSIAA Playoffs

For all its faults the NJSIAA Football Playoffs are still a very big deal and if you take the attitude that high school sports is supposed to be about the kids then we should not minimize the achievement of winning one of the 20 state sectional championships up for grabs each fall. Saturday Southern and Brick Memorial are among the six Shore Conference teams that will play for the right to call themselves a state champion.

Southern had never even won a playoff game until last season and now find themselves in the South Jersey Group 4 Finals at undefeated Mainland tomorrow at 1pm. Many are ready to coronate the Mustangs as among the best in south Jersey history as they have outscored their opponents by an average score of 41-6. However the Rams have truly arrived this season with their only loss being by one point to Toms River North, a defeat they would avenge in the opening round of the playoffs in mid-November. They feature a trio of seniors…Glenn Carson, Anthony Stroffolino and Steve Sibona who are among the best players to wear the black and gold. Certainly they are the underdog heading to Linwood tomorrow but veteran coach Chuck Donohue has assembled a group of players who are comfortable with that role and know the only thing that counts is the final score.

Walt Currie was 4-6 in his first season as a head coach at Brick Memorial in 2007 and while improvement was expected I don’t know too many who thought they’d be playing the first Saturday in December. The Mustangs finished behind Toms River North and Southern in the American Division but have worked their way into the Central Jersey Group 4 Championship game at Rutgers University where they meet Sayreville tomorrow night at 7pm. Quarterback Brian Staub has rushed for over 1,000 yards as the leader of their option attack and he gets plenty of help from lineman Anthony D’Elia. The Stangs are looking for their second state title against a Sayreville team that has made the playoffs 12 straight years but won only one championship in that period.

The Brick Memorial-Sayreville game will the finale of a tripleheader we will broadcast tomorrow from Rutgers on the Shore Sports Network. We will start at 1pm when Manasquan meets A.L. Johnson and following that Freehold plays Middletown South. The games can be heard on 1160 WOBM AM, Fox Sports 1310 and at shoresportsnetwork.com