The Saturday schedule in the Big Central Conference already was light, with just three games on tap, but the forecast for the big Nor’easter barreling up the East Coast slashed that number by two thirds.
That will leave two games – and four teams – playing on Monday, with all four having to come back on quick rest to play Friday. The lone game of the day say No. 6 Bridgewater-Raritan pick up a shutout win at Westfield.
And an already wild Friday night around the league got even wilder following a controversial call at the final horn in the Cranford-Rahway game.
Panthers roll at Westfield, 20-0…
All in all, it’s very likely all three Big Central games could have been played Saturday, as the weather seemed to calm just in time for No. 6 Bridgewater-Raritan to play its 1:00 game at Kehler Stadium in Westfield against the Blue Devils. (The others were North Brunswick at Franklin and Phillipsburg at St. Joseph, which have been moved to 6 pm and 3 pm Monday, respectively.)
And the wind wasn’t terribly bad either, which was good news for Panthers’ sophomore quarterback J.B. Baxter, who went 8-of-14 passing for 80 yards, while Jahmier Black led with 78 rushing yards and a touchdown on 17 carries in a 20-0 road victory.
But perhaps more impressive was the Bridgewater defense. The Panthers (4-1) held Westfield (1-4) to just nine yards on the ground, and taking out their quarterback, two of the other three ball carriers in the game had negative yardage. Charlie Young was the leading rusher with seven carries for 31 yards.
Jon Okolo had just five carries for 17 yards for Bridgewater-Raritan, but made them count, scoring two touchdowns. Senior defensive lineman Trent Levash also had a fumble recovery off a blocked punt.
The win makes it victories in back-to-back games in back-to-back years over Westfield for the first time since 2009 and 2010, with a slight asterisk. They beat Westfield in the regular season in 2019, then lost to them in the playoffs, and won again in 2020. But that had a postseason loss in between, and the 2020 season was the COVID-year, in which Westfield only managed to play two games, both losses to the Panthers and St. Joseph-Metuchen.
Bridgewater visits Hunterdon Central (1-4) next Friday night, while the Blue Devils travel to Woodbridge (3-2).
Let’s go to the videotape…
There is no video review in high school football in New Jersey – at least, not anymore. (A short-lived attempt a few years ago was ditched when two video reviews in state finals were botched and the NJSIAA decided to do away with it.)
But there often are multiple photographers and cameras on site at every high school football game, and Friday’s game between Rahway and Cranford at Madden Field was no exception.
Rahway was down 14-7 and had a chance near the goal line with five seconds to play. Jaquan Robinson threw to Jaylen Eastman, who caught the ball in the air across the goal line, but he landed out of bounds. That much is not in dispute.
Central Jersey Sports Radio analyst Marcus Borden was in the back of the end zone, shooting video of the play. His video appears to show anywhere between :00.5 and :00.7 seconds on the clock at the time Eastman’s cleats touch the turf, at which point the clock would stop.
Watch the video below, which also appears to show the clock stutter, never showing :00.6 or :00.5 but jumping right to :00.4, although it appears those are also the correct times. The clock may not display the missing two-tenths in between, but appears to be counting them nonetheless.
Rahway argued there should still be time on the clock, and from this vantage point that makes sense.
However, NJ.com reporter Steven Bassin has video that shows the start of the play with the scoreboard on the other side of the field in the frame.
In Borden’s video, pre-snap, his play-by-play account indicates five seconds are on the clock. But from Bassin’s point of view, the video starts after the snap, the clock is still at :05, and a little over one full second into the video – with players already moving – the clock remains at five seconds even.
After the play, the clock appears frozen at :00.3, then after several seconds winds down to zero.
But remember, there is no video review in high school football in New Jersey. But officials can get together to discuss, and they did. After meeting on the field, the officials held up the football to show the game was over.
So what really happened?
That’s anyone’s guess, since no one besides the officials are privy to their conversation. But in any case, officials can meet to discuss what each person saw. It’s very likely they saw the three-tenths of a second on the clock after the play, but not at the time the catch was made and the ball was out of bounds. But if the officials did notice – and there’s a better chance of this – that the clock did not start on time, and was more than a second late in starting, that they decided time should have run out and the game was over.
What’s notable here is the scoreboard and clock locations at Madden Field – yes, plural. While many high school stadiums have one scoreboard in the back of one of the end zones, Madden has two scoreboards, one along each sideline. So it’s very possible the line judge and head linesman – who are stationed on opposite sidelines on the line of scrimmage, watching for false starts and off-sides penalties – saw the clock failed to start and relayed that to the group as they met to discuss.
Without having talked to the officials – who reportedly left the field with no explanation to either coach – we’ll never know, but based on the video evidence, this would seem to be the only explanation, and – we think – the right call.
SATURDAY SCOREBOARD
- No. 6 Bridgewater-Raritan 20, Westfield 0
FRIDAY SCOREBOARD
- No. 4 Old Bridge 27, No. 2 Piscataway 26 (Game story with audio)
- No. 3 Elizabeth 28, No. 10 Ridge 23
- Montgomery 38, No. 7 Somerville 35
- Cranford 14, No. 8 Rahway 7 (Recap with video via Marcus Borden)
- Sayreville 37, No. 9 St. Thomas Aquinas 21
- South Plainfield 14, Carteret 6 (Game story with audio)
- Brearley 33, JP Stevens 0
- Union 42, Hillsborough 13
- Dayton 40, Roselle Park 35
- New Providence 48, Roselle 0
- East Brunswick 34, Voorhees 7
- Woodbridge 28, Colonia 21
- Perth Amboy 40, Metuchen 0
- North Plainfield 41, JFK 7
- Watchung Hills 21, Hunterdon Central 19
- Johnson 21, Spotswood 6
- Bernards 28, Delaware Valley 0
- Middlesex 21, Dunellen 0
- Highland Park 47, South River 0
- Belvidere 35, Bound Brook 0
- Scotch Plains-Fanwood 33, North Hunterdon 22
- Plainfield 37, Linden 14
- Manville 42, South Hunterdon 8
- Hillside 44, New Brunswick 0
- South Brunswick 38, Monroe 14
THURSDAY SCORES
- Summit 20, Edison 0 (Game recap with audio)
- Governor Livingston 38, Lyndhurst 0
MONDAY SCHEDULE
- No. 1 Phillipsburg at No. 5 St. Joseph-Metuchen, 3 pm
- North Brunswick at Franklin, 6 pm
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