Posts Tagged ‘Matt McLain’

Offensive Explosions Highlight Opening Night

September 11, 2010

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E-mail: stump@allshoremedia.com

There was no lack of offense on opening night, as nine teams scored 34 or more points, headlined by the 62-point firebombing Neptune put on a rebuilding Bishop Ahr team in the debut of new Scarlet Fliers head coach Don Sofilkanich.

I did not have Neptune ranked in my preseason top 10, which definitely raised some eyebrows, and even our basketball man, Mr. Nep84 himself, who was at the game on Friday night, jokingly texted “It’s now 62-0. Is this enough to be in the top 10 next week?”

All of the stars took turns making plays, but I think the most encouraging sign was the performance of junior Jaheem Woods. We all know about Charles Davis and Ikie Calderon, who did their thing on Friday, including a 50-yard punt return by Davis to get the avalanche rolling. Woods, however, is an excellent athlete who has been buzzed about since his freshman year, and he had a great day offensively and also returned an interception for a touchdown defensively. If he becomes a genuine threat at quarterback, whether running or passing, Neptune will be fearsome and I will be well on my way to looking like an idiot for not ranking them (although they could be ranked by the end of this weekend. We’ll see). They face No. 5 Red Bank Catholic, which was impressive in a 34-7 win over a young Southern team on Friday night, next week, which is a huge early game in the Class B North race.

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Mega-Preseason Camp Report – Matawan, Keyport, TRS and More

August 28, 2010

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E-mail: stump@allshoremedia.com

I hit a couple scrimmages and camps in the last few days and did some writing on top of it, so I’m pretty much throwing it all in a blender here.

I’ll start with Matawan, which returns all of its top skill players from last year’s NJSIAA Central Jersey Group II champions and has added some more to the arsenal. The Huskies look like the preseason No. 1 team in the Shore Conference, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I watched the Howell-Matawan scrimmage on Friday morning and here are some notes from that about the Huskies and Rebels.

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