Phillipsburg players take the field before their game with Ridge at Maloney Stadium in Phillipsburg on September 8, 2023. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
A 48-minute football game sometimes comes down to a couple of key plays.
For top-ranked Phillipsburg Friday night – in a game heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio – three first-half plays in particular were key.
An interception and a fumble recovery in the second quarter both led to scoring drives that gave the Stateliners a 14-0 lead over their visitors from Basking Ridge. Then, after the Red Devils’ Ryan Olivo scored from ten yards out to cut the deficit in half with under a minute before halftime, Phillipsburg successfully executed a hook-and-lateral that went 50 yards for a score.
Quarterback Jett Genovese connected with top-receiver Matthew Scerbo, Jr., on a long pass, but Scerbo – standing perfectly still at the time – made a short pitch to Kevin Burgess, who took it the final 30-yards for the score to go into the locker room up 21-7.
Ridge came back with another TD run from Olivo in the third quarter – this time from five yards out – to make it 21-14, and then Phillipsburg played some serious ball control offense.
They got the ball with 9:09 remaining, up a touchdown. And they held it for the remainder of the game, withstanding Ridge’s remaining timeouts, and converting on a fourth-and-short with under a minute left to ice the game, allowing the Stateliners (2-0) to close it out with a knee in victory formation.
Ridge drops to 1-1 with the loss.
Click below for postgame reaction from Justin Sontupe presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:
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