Tougher schedule? New coach? It’s no problem to St. Thomas Aquinas, unbeaten in Big Central play

Friday night, just at the edge of the Watchung Mountains at Krausche Field, close enough to Route 22 to hear the traffic whiz by, St. Thomas Aquinas won its seventh game of the year.

The scores may look good, but it hasn’t been an easy road.

As it should have, The Trojans moved to a tougher division last year after blowing through the competition in the first full year of play in the new Big Central Conference. They recorded seven shutouts in 2021, tying a playoff-era Middlesex County record previously owned by Piscataway’s 2004 state championship team that featured three future NFL Draft Picks.

Then, the sudden, shocking news that came on March 17th: second-year head coach Brian Meeney died of a heart attack at age 46 on his way to school.

Enter Tarig Holman, who left JFK the next town over to coach four miles away at Aquinas.

And the Trojans haven’s missed a beat.

Friday night’s seventh win of the season, though, had a symmetry to it. Against 1-6 North Plainfield, Aquians won 56-7, as Jayden Young threw his 50th career touchdown pass and Holman got his 50th career win, all on his 46th birthday.

It may be his best coaching effort yet, having gone 3-7 in South Brunswick in 2009, 15-6 in two years at Trenton (7-4 in 2014), 11-10 in two seasons at Randolph, 11-9 in three years at Neptune – turning around a program 0-10 in his first year to go 11-9 the next two, and 3-13 the last two years at JFK.

The Trojans lone loss this year came in the Week Zero season opener against Timber Creek of the West Jersey Football League. In seven Big Central games that have followed, they have two shutouts, and have held five opponents to single digit scoring on the year.

And they’ve added one more challenge: St. John Vianney in a tenth game in two weeks. (Non-Public start the playoffs later and can schedule ten regular season games.)

Click below for this week’s Sunday Conversation, as Mike Pavlichko talked to St. Thomas Aquinas head coach Tarig Holman after his 50th career win, Friday night against North Plainfield: