Old Bridge seeks first sectional title as Knights head down to deep South Jersey to face Washington Twp. in Central Jersey Group 5 final

The 2025 season has been an outstanding one for the Old Bridge football team, but the Knights still have one more big accomplishment on their list to achieve: their first-ever state titles.

Two prior Championship Weekend appearances – in 2001 and 2015 – bore no fruit, and this year’s berth will no doubt be quite the challenging one, but if any Old Bridge team could do it, it might be this one.

Defensively, they may give up some points, but boy can they score. Quarterback Brody Nugent has is a two-thousand yard passer and a thousand-yard rusher. Defensively, they have 23 takeaways – 12 picks and 11 recovered fumbles. And they’ve won a program record ten games.

All that has brought them to this weekend, the goal of every team when they first put the pads on in Week Zero: to play for a championship.

The Knights will get that opportunity Friday night way down in the far reaches of South Jersey – South of Philly even – when third-seeded Old Bridge (10-1) takes on top-seed Washington Twp. (11-0) down in Sewell, NJ, for the Central Jersey Group 5 championship.

The Minutemen are the No. 1 seed in Central 5 due to the NJSIAA’s seeding procedure, which no longer includes pre-set geographical sections.

And they are no joke. Senior QB Cole Aquino has thrown for just shy of 1,300 yards this season, with 19 touchdowns and just three picks. The defense has pitched five shutouts this season and held eight teams in the teens or better. And they are strong up front on both sides of the ball.

They Minutemen also are the defending champions, but it hasn’t been a particularly long run. They made it to Championship Weekend in 2023 as well, losing to juggernaut Toms River North, but before that had not been to the finals in 19 years.

Click below to listen to Old Bridge head coach Matt Donaghue talk about the Knights’ season and Friday’s Central Jersey Group 5 final at Washington Twp. with CJSR’s Mike Pavlichko: