Somerville will host Summit in a week 9 game on Central Jersey Sports Radio.
Central Jersey Sports Radio has announced its final two games of the regular season broadcast schedule for the Big Central Game of the Week, driven by Mark Montenero and his team at the world-famous Autoland!
The Week 8 game this coming Friday, October 22, will be Manville at Bound Brook. The Mustangs are 5-1, yet fighting for their lives in the playoff chase. Entering Week 7, Manville was 19th in the latest UPR standings, and moved up to 18th after this weekend’s games, in which they beat Highland Park 35-0. Bound Brook is 3-4 after a 34-20 home setback to Brearley back on Friday night.
The two schools have been longtime rivals in many sports since the 1950s, and had met on Thanksgiving or the night before every year from 1998 to 2011. Prior to that, they would play in one of the first few weeks of the season.
The Week 9 game – Cutoff Weekend for the playoffs – will feature No. 1 Somerville hosting Summit. The Pioneers are 5-1 and winners of four straight after a 47-26 road win at St. Joseph of Metuchen Saturday, as heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio. Summit is 5-2 after dropping a 20-13 decision to Warren Hills in the last of a stretch of four home games. The Hilltoppers have a bye next week before facing the Pioneers at Brooks Field.
LISTEN: MacNair’s 300-yard game propels No. 1 Somerville past game St. Joe’s-Metuchen
Summit also is the last league team to beat Somerville, having knocked off the Pioneers in 2019 – their only regular season loss that year – 23-16 on October 5th. This will be their first meeting since then, as the teams did not meet in last year’s COVID-shortened season.
Since 2016, when Jeff Vanderbeek became the solo head coach of the Somerville program – now led by then-assistant Dallas Whitaker – the Pioneers have never lost a “rematch” game against an opponent that beat them. They are 2-0 in such games, avenging a defeat at the hands of Rumson in the 2016 Central Jersey Group 3 title game with a win in that same game in 2017. their only loss in 2017 was to Rahway, and the Pioneers exacted revenge their next time out in 2018.
In that stretch, Somerville has only lost to Rumson in the 2018 title game, but they haven’t played since; to Summit in the 2019 regular season; to Woodrow Wilson in the 2019 South Jersey Group 3 title game, and they haven’t played since; and to Northern Highlands earlier this season.
Overall, the Pioneers are 54-6 since 2016, the best five-years-and-change stretch in school history.
Central Jersey Sports Radio will also broadcast select playoff games in the state tournament, which begins the weekend of November 5-6. Continue to follow us on Facebook – and on Twitter at @cjsportsradio.com for updates on our broadcast schedule, which can be found here.