Author: Mike Pavlichko

September 13, 2026September 13, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

CAUTION: Our very UNOFFICIAL Week 2 UPR standings; there’s a lot going on out there

Alright, here we go. Take a deep breath.

Central Jersey Sports Radio is publishing today its first unofficial – and we cannot stress this enough, so please let there be no confusion – New Jersey high school football UPR standings. These are the standings that determine playoff eligibility on Cutoff Weekend.

Before we get to the standings, a few key points:

We have been tracking Strength Index since Week Zero, and many of you have seen our weekly unofficial updates. Previously, Gridiron New Jersey would update the official values from the very beginning of the season. So far, NJ.com has not. So these numbers are very likely mostly accurate, but some may be off by smaller amounts. (Note: We encourage all coaches to check these from the very beginning of the season and let us know if you think there’s a discrepancy.)
There have been a few issues with SI values for out of state teams. In Week Zero, we neglected to find these in real time from MaxPreps, and has to recreate them with the use of AI research. We believe they are reasonably close. One other issue: the NJSIAA regulations say to find the out-of-state (OOS) team rating, then find the NJSIAA member school above and below them, find their corresponding SI and average. But for a couple of teams, we found an OOS team with the exact same MaxPreps rating as a New Jersey team. Do we still find the ones above and below, or use the exact match? Common sense might say the exact match, but the regulations do not specify. (Perhaps something to fix for next year?)
On the same topic, we are using what we project to be the out-of-state SI values that NJ.com will release this week. These are post-Week Two values, which will be used for the next several weeks through Week Six. New values will be released before Week 7, and again before Week 8 (Cutoff Weekend), when the SI values of all NJ teams are locked in. It should be noted that SI values of OOS opponents are not “calculated” based on game results throughout the year as they are for New Jersey schools. Rather, they are looked up on MaxPreps separately, regardless of prior scores. Just because a team may rise in MaxPreps rankings, does not necessarily mean they rise in SI, since the two formulas are completely different.

We also were alerted by the Pitman public address announcer that NJ.com had two different scores online as of 2:30 Sunday afternoon. The Scoreboard page said Pitman had beaten Pennsville 41-6, but the box score for the game had 41-0 Pennsville, which the Pitman P.A. man says is the correct score. It has since been fixed on NJ.com, and we adjusted our numbers with the correct score. Whether this was a reporting issue by a coach (highly unlikely, since the score in one place should automatically transfer to the scoreboard, or vice versa) or a bug in NJ.com’s software (we think that’s more likely), we are unaware of any other incorrect scores as of this publishing. Nor do we have the time to check 155 box scores around the state (after all, the NJSIAA is not paying us to do this). But it may call into question the accuracy of other games, which could affect our standings.
In past years, each week we checked our standings with Gridiron. Often, in the rare chance of an error, it may have been a game added to the schedule from out of the CJSR-area that we didn’t hear about, or it might be a different opponent compared to the schedules we entered during the preseason. However, there have been Gridiron errors as well, often due to incorrect score reporting by coaches.

All of the above means we make no guarantee on the accuracy since we have seen no prior SI values to look up and check our work. This will be a very fluid situation throughout the year, and we’ll keep monitoring as we move along.

Once NJ.com publishes its official standings – no later than noon Tuesday, though it appears they will have them Monday, we will check our work and see how we did.

That said, here are out entirely unofficial Week 2 UPR standings for public school supersections in New Jersey. (Due to the fact non-publics are seeded by a committee, with the UPR as a guide, but not strictly followed, we do not keep track of non-public standings. However, we do keep track of non-public SI values for our state and Big Central power rankings, as well as for SI calculation of public schools that play non-publics.)

September 13, 2026September 12, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

INSTANT REPLAY: Manville 35, Bound Brook 7

Senior quarterback Jonathan Gosk rushed for two touchdowns and threw for two more as Manville defeated arch-rival Bound Brook, 35-7, in the Big Central Conference Freedom Silver Division opener for both teams.

Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Vin Ebenau call all the play-by-play live from Ned Panfile Stadium in Manville, NJ, on September 11, 2026:

1st Half

2nd Half

September 13, 2026September 12, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

INSTANT REPLAY: No. 4 Old Bridge 21, South Brunswick 0

Chase Rizzo scored all three touchdowns – on a 57-yard pass play and runs of one and 59 yards – to get fourth-ranked Old Bridge past South Brunswick, 21-0 in the Big Central Conference National Gold Division opener for both teams.

Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel call all the play-by-play live from Mike Elko Field in Monmouth Junction, NJ, on September 10, 2026:

1st Half

2nd Half

September 12, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

Saturday Big Central Roundup: Roselle Park, Hillside cruise in limited slate

There were just two matchups Saturday afternoon in the Big Central Conference, with many teams playing Thursday and Friday and holding 9/11 commemoration ceremonies – there was even a State Police helicopter flyover at the Old Bridge South Brunswick game Thursday evening in Monmouth Junction, although the officials started the game a bit early.

Kickoff was set for 6:02 pm, but the teams were already out for the kickoff. After getting that out of the way, they paused for a minute as the chopper flew from right to left “on your radio dial” across the field, and the game resumed.

Scroll down for a game recap on Roselle Park-South River, and the full Big Central Week 2 scoreboard.

Roselle Park nabs first win with big first quarter…

Clearly, Roselle Park wanted to establish themselves early Saturday afternoon at South River, and they did just that.

The Panthers (1-2) – who took a non-league loss in Week Zero up in Wood-Ridge, then suffered a narrow home loss to Belvidere – scored 35 first-quarter points, and got two more the rest of the way out in a running clock game to beat the Rams, 49-6.

While Josiah Matos got the scoring started on defense with a 35-yard pick-six, Nick Salas scored the next two touchdowns on six- and one-yard runs, while Nasir Cheston and Maxwell Griffin added 24- and five-yard TD jaunts, respectively.

Salas added two more scores to finish the day with four; he had a 20-yard TD run in the second quarter, and busted out for an 88-yarder in the third before South River (0-3) spoiled the shutout with a two-yard run by Aiden Lubczynski.

The Rams have dropped 12 of their last 13 contests, their lone win in that span coming in their finale last season, 19-0 over Dunellen. Roselle Park has won the last two against South River by a combined 91-6, though the Rams beat them by a similar score, 45-19, in 2024, a season where they went 3-7.

SATURDAY SCORES

Roselle Park 49, South River 6
Hillside 20, Delaware Valley 3

FRIDAY SCORES

Freedom (PA) 32, #1 Phillipsburg 31
#2 St. Joseph-Metuchen 28, Westfield 6
#5 Bridgewater-Raritan 40, Hillsborough 14
#8 St. Thomas Aquinas 40, Franklin 0
#10 Rahway 42, Woodbridge 21
Belvidere 42, Dunellen 2 (Coverage via Marcus Borden)
Manville 35, Bound Brook 7 (Recap with Audio)
Summit 13, Carteret 6
Monroe 42, North Brunswick 7
Plainfield 26, Colonia 7
Perth Amboy 42, Roselle 6
South Plainfield 35, JFK 0
Dayton 14, Brearley 7
Linden 14, New Brunswick 15
Sayreville 41, Edison 6
Elizabeth 19, Union 7

THURSDAY SCORES:

#3 Piscataway 42, East Brunswick 7
#4 Old Bridge 21, South Brunswick 0 (Recap with Audio)
#6 Somerville 54, North Hunterdon 6
#9 Ridge 23, Hunterdon Central 17
Highland Park 43, JP Stevens 0 (Coverage from Marcus Borden)
South Hunterdon 21, Middlesex 15
New Providence 27, Johnson 20
Cranford 40, Scotch Plains-Fanwood 14
Voorhees 14, North Plainfield 7
Bernards 49, Governor Livingston 29
Montgomery 32, Watchung Hills 14
Spotswood 47, Metuchen 14

September 12, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

OPINION: We all want to see the football playoff standings, but we all need to be patient

It’s a casual Saturday afternoon. I just got finished mowing the lawn. Had a nice grilled cheese with maple-smoked bacon for lunch. And now, I sit down to write on a light Saturday for high school football, at least in the Big Central Conference.

Week Two of play has just about wrapped up, and per the NJSIAA Football Regulations for 2026, the first UPR playoff standings for the season are due out no later than noon on Tuesday. But they will no longer be on Gridiron New Jersey, they will be on NJ.com instead.

We are not privy to the machinations that brought the UPR over to NJ.com, which houses all the playoff standings for the state. (That should really be a job for the NJSIAA, not one specific media outlet, but that’s another debate for another time.) But the gist that we got from talking to some people in the know is as follows:

At some point, the state decided to put all its playoff standings on the same platform, in this case NJ.com. Gridiron was paid a significant sum of money to do the work since the advent of the UPR system in 2018. Since it was no longer being paid, it was no longer feasible for founder and owner Jon Fass to keep the site running.

While many bemoaned the loss of the history and records, that information can still be found.

Gridiron had every playoff bracket from 1974 to the present. We now have that on our site under the history tab in the menu, or by clicking here. (We’ve also added a Big Central Record Book, as well as county tournament history for boys’ and girls’ basketball and baseball in the GMC and Somerset County; you can find links to all by clicking here to visit our history homepage.)

As for season results? NJ.com goes back to 2010, MaxPreps to 2004, and the Dr. Roger Saylor Collection goes from 2010 back to the 1800s. (We’re not kidding.) You can find the link to that on our history homepage.

So, what about those standings?

High school football coaches have been on edge about the change since well before Gridiron New Jersey even shutdown in June. Shortly after the state finals, the website was temporarily available while they worked on “improvements.” The site never came back.

What are the standings going to look like? What information will there be? When will it be posted?

I happened to have seen a sneak peek of a development site, and I can tell you that the standings are expected to be in a similar layout to what Gridiron had, and may even include more information, a definite improvement. The NJSIAA and NJFCA both pushed for this. It also appears you’ll be able to click on each team to see their point breakdown and math, just like you can on their site with power points.

And the NJSIAA Football Regulations give the same deadlines for when they should be posted each week (no later than noon on Tuesday, and on Cutoff Weekend it’ll be noon Sunday). That doesn’t mean they’ll always be that late, but even Gridiron, if there was a Sunday game due to bad weather or field conditions, Fass would wait.

My only initial concern is that SI numbers will be easy to find. They shouldn’t be buried in each team’s calculations. Put it on each team page (like Gridiron did) or put it in the standings. Fass never wanted it in the standings for fear of confusing SI with OSI. But that was eight years ago. We all (should) know the difference by now. Putting it in the standings would be great. Publishing a master list (like we do every week, and did last week with our unofficial SI numbers) would be ideal, and – yes – an improvement over Gridrion New Jersey.

And Gridiron was not infallible. There was a notable bug the first year after COVID, late in the season, that resulted in OSI corrections for over a dozen teams, the vast majority in the Big Central Conference.

While NJSIAA has logged power points for years, those still are relatively simple, even with the addition of the OOWP (Opponent’s Opponent Win Percentage). Why? It’s all just wins and losses, easy accessible, easily calculated by a script or a spreadsheet. But when you start talking about points, and scores reported incorrectly, it gets infinitely more complicated.

Then, there are the caveats. You only get residuals from an opponent’s fist seven games. But you’re also capped at 18 residuals. There are multipliers, but a public can only use two. (Rumson-Fair Haven has three, so only the top two point totals will count, and guess when the third is? Cutoff Weekend, of course!) Then there are the top-down, head-to-head tiebreakers, then the snaking, oh and you can’t make the playoffs unless you have at least two wins, but undefeated teams automatically qualify and knock out the 16th-seeded team. And then, what if a team had too many disqualifications and isn’t eligible.

It’s a lot. I’ll betray confidences a bit here. In one of my many conversations with Jon Fass about this stuff, one moment stuck with me, one thing he said to me in the midst of it all: “This system is a real pain in the ass.”

No truer words could be spoken. And the system itself? Well, that’s another topic for another day.

Many of you who know me, and know me well, are well aware that patience is not exactly my strong suit.

But go with me on this one. Be patient. If something looks wrong, ask someone. But let’s wait for it to come out. If for some reason it’s not out by noon Tuesday, and it’s out Wednesday, just wait for it.

After all, do we want it fast? Or do we want it right?

September 12, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

Friday Night Big Central Roundup: Top-ranked Phillipsburg drops final Pennsy matchup before BCC play; Dayton turns tables on Brearley; Bridgewater exorcises some demons against Hillsborough

There weren’t too many unexpected results around the Big Central as divisional play opened for most teams, but the one surprise score came from out in the Lehigh Valley.

That’s where top-ranked Phillipsburg lost to Freedom (PA) – ranked No. 5 by Lehigh Valley Live – at Bethlehem Area School District Stadium, 32-31, in a back-and-forth affair that was their first meeting in 32 years, and which the local media out there are calling an instant classic.

Scroll through for recaps, scores, interviews, and the rest of the weekend schedule in the Big Central!

Liners take first loss heading into BCC play…

Phillipsburg scored first Friday night in their longtime rematch with Freedom on an 18-yard run by quarterback Dominic Bracco, but Freedom got the next three scores: two touchdowns sandwiched around a 37-yard field goal. but the ‘Liners Hunter Garrison connected from 47 to make it 17-10 Freedom at the half.

In the third quarter, a two-yard touchdown run by Xavier Campbell-Graham tied it, and his 49-yarder put P’burg up 23-17, after a blocked kick. Another TD by Freedom put then up 24-23 in the fourth, before Phillipsburg wrestled the lead back on a 34-yard touchdown run and two-point conversion pass., But Freedom would go ahead 32-31 on a touchdown run by Lashawn Johnson and his own two-point run. And they held on Phillipsburg’s final drive, forcing a turnover on downs on a fourth-and-20 for the Stateliners.

Bracco finished 8-of-16 passing for 157 yards, while running for 90 yards on nine carries, with two touchdowns. Shane Moore ran for 117 yards on 24 carries, and Campbell-Graham carried 13 times for 95 yards with two touchdown runs.

The Stateliners (2-1) will host Hillsborough next week before a brutal stretch: back-to-back road games at No. 2 St. Joseph-Metuchen and No. 9 Ridge, then No. 5 Bridgewater-Raritan at home.

Dayton flips the script on Brearley…

Last season, Brearley got a late 10-7 win over Dayton with a big defensive stand, keeping the Bulldogs out of the playoffs. This year, up in Kenlworth Friday night, they turned the tables with a 14-7 win on their own defensive stand at the two-yard line, a win that could help get them in the playoffs this year.

Tyler Fuscaldo opened the scoring for Dayton after the Bulldogs got the ball on the two following a Bears turnover, punching it in from a yard out. But Nate Bonnet’s 25-yard touchdown run for Brearley in the second quarter left it a 7-7 game at the half.

In the third, Fuscaldo scored again, this time from four yards out, to put Dayton back up by seven. Brearley threatened late, with Dayton appearing to have made a stop on fourth-and-two, but they’d have to do it again, after getting called for pass interference. And do it again they did, hanging on for a 14-7 win that puts them at 2-1 on the season after a season-opening loss at Governor Livingston.

Brearley took its first loss of the season and falls to 2-1.

Click here to listen to Dayton head coach Nick Iannacone talk about the win over Brearley with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko.

Notes and Nuggets…

Not only did fifth-ranked Bridgewater-Raritan see its best offensive output of the season at Basilone Field Friday night in a 40-14 win over Hillsborough, it was also the Panthers’ first win over their rivals from down Route 206 in almost nine years to the day. The last time Bridgewater beat the Raiders was in 2017, when they came up with a 31-30 home win on September 15th of that year. Many of those nine defeats were close, with all but one coming by 12 points or less.
Senior and fourth-year starting quarterback Arique Fleming threw for 215 yards and a touchdown on a whopping 17-of-19 passing in a 19-7 road win at Union, handing the Farmers their first loss of the season. But they might need all that and then some next Friday night, when the Minutemen host No. 2 St. Joseph-Metuchen next Friday night at 6:00, in a game you can hear on Central Jersey Sports Radio with Alec Crouthamel and Dylan Allen on the call.
Make it two straight wins for Monroe, which pounded North Brunswick, 42-7. Those are their first back-to-back wins since 2024, when the Falcons finished 4-6, and they have three very winnable games coming up: at home against East Brunswick next Friday, and a pair of road games at South Brunswick and North Hunterdon come to town. It’s also their first 2-1 start in four seasons under Nick Isola, and first overall since Dan Lee was coach in 2021.
Plainfield’s 26-7 win over Colonia snapped its first two-game skid since 2022, putting the Cardinals at 2-1 heading into next Friday’s home matchup against Woodbridge, the first of two back-to-back home games, with Linden to follow.
Back to our Thursday Night Big Central Roundup “Notes and Nuggets” section, we dug deep to find out the last time Highland Park – which beat JP Stevens 43-0 Thursday evening in North Edison – had shut out three straight opponents, which the Owls have now done in their 3-0 start by a combined 99-0 margin. Turns out it was 1964, when Rich Policastro was playing quarterback for Highland Park. Read more in our story posted earlier today on CJSR!

FRIDAY SCORES

Freedom (PA) 32, #1 Phillipsburg 31
#2 St. Joseph-Metuchen 28, Westfield 6
#5 Bridgewater-Raritan 40, Hillsborough 14
#8 St. Thomas Aquinas 40, Franklin 0
#10 Rahway 42, Woodbridge 21
Belvidere 42, Dunellen 2 (Coverage via Marcus Borden)
Manville 35, Bound Brook 7 (Recap with Audio)
Summit 13, Carteret 6
Monroe 42, North Brunswick 7
Plainfield 26, Colonia 7
Perth Amboy 42, Roselle 6
South Plainfield 35, JFK 0
Dayton 14, Brearley 7
Linden 14, New Brunswick 15
Sayreville 41, Edison 6
Elizabeth 19, Union 7

SATURDAY SCHEDULE

Roselle Park at South River, 1 pm
Delaware Valley at Hillside, 1 pm

THURSDAY SCORES:

#3 Piscataway 42, East Brunswick 7
#4 Old Bridge 21, South Brunswick 0 (Recap with Audio)
#6 Somerville 54, North Hunterdon 6
#9 Ridge 23, Hunterdon Central 17
Highland Park 43, JP Stevens 0 (Coverage from Marcus Borden)
South Hunterdon 21, Middlesex 15
New Providence 27, Johnson 20
Cranford 40, Scotch Plains-Fanwood 14
Voorhees 14, North Plainfield 7
Bernards 49, Governor Livingston 29
Montgomery 32, Watchung Hills 14
Spotswood 47, Metuchen 14

September 11, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

A long trip well worth it for Belvidere, as County Seaters pound Dunellen, 42-2

Belvidere’s fifth-year head coach Jordon Schreffler has seen the County Seaters improve a great deal since his debut season, when the team went 0-9.

They went from 3-7 the following year to 8-2 in 2024 before dipping to .500, going 5-5 last season. But with players like senior Elijah White returning and junior Jake Enderley running the offense for a second year after getting the keys to the bus as a sophomore, the start to 2026 has gone mostly well.

After a season-opening loss to rival Hackettsown, Belvidere is now 2-1 overall and unbeaten in Big Central Conference play after winning its Freedom Silver Division opener Friday night, 42-2 over Dunellen at Columbia Park.

They got started right on their first possession, after forcing a Dunellen punt, with Enderley hitting White for a 48-yard touchdown pass with 8:50 to go in the first, making it 7-0. After an interception on their next possession, their third resulted in another score, a 33-yard pitch play from Enderley to Kaiden Drake for a 33-yard touchdown run just 1:53 into the second quarter.

A Kayden Thorpe interception led to another Seater touchdown 5:32 before the half, as Enderley ran one in from 23-yards out to make it 21-0. Dunellen would get its only points in the final minute, with Belvidere pinned back in its own end, as Enderley had a snap sail over his head into the end zone, where he eventually fell on it.

Dunellen would put together a good late third-quarter drive and threaten, but it stalled out with a turnover on downs at the one. After another touchdown made it 28-2, Enderley threw a 90-yard strike to White with 40 seconds left in the period to make it 35-2, and with a running clock in play, Thorpe picked off his second pass of the day, this time bringing it 60 yards to the house to provide the final 40-point margin.

Dunellen dropped to 0-2 with the loss, its 22nd straight dating back to an opening round playoff loss in 2023, when the Destroyers finished 5-4.

Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Marcus Borden with Belvidere head coach Jordon Schreffler, senior Elijah White and junior Jake Enderley, presented by Sportsplex at Metcuhen!

September 11, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

Manville takes out arch-rival Bound Brook, 35-0 as Gosk runs for two, tossed two touchdowns

It may have been a little sloppy on both sides of the ball Friday night at Ned Panfile Stadium in Manville, but the home Mustangs got two touchdown runs and two touchdown passes from Jonathan Gosk to help beat arch-rival Bound Brook 35-7 in a game heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio.

Manville led 21-0 at the half thanks to three touchdowns Gosk was involved in.

The first capped the longest scoring drive of any of the five in the game, an eight-play, 74-yard march on the opening possession, capped by Gosk’s one-yard run, with 6:28 to go in the first.

Just 13 seconds into the second quarter, he hit Mohamed Abdelmageed for a 46-yard strike on the first play of that drive, then Aiden Johnson bookended the period with a five-yard touchdown catch just 16 seconds before the half.

In between, Bound Brook’s athletes proved they could move the ball, but penalties and a fumble, the first of two on the game, kept them off the board.

Their lone touchdown came on the second half kickoff, when Zahmir Moore took the boot 78 yards to the house to slash the deficit to 21-7. But Elijah Bennett scored with 3:13 to go in the quarter, and Gosk ran one in from 21 yards out midway through the fourth to provide the final score.

Manville has won two straight to improve to 2-1, with a second home game in a row coming up next week against Dunellen, while Bound Brook drops to 0-3 with a home game against South Hunterdon next week.

Click below for postgame reaction from Manville head coach Dave Markowitch and senior QB Jonathan Gosk with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen!

September 11, 2026September 11, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

Highland Park shuts out first three opponents; it’s been a while since that’s happened for Owls

The Highland Park football team looks very good in 2026.

After snapping a 51-game losing streak – the longest active in New Jersey at the time – in their 2023 finale with a last-minute add on game at Point Pleasant Beach, the Owls won six games in 2024, just four last year, but this year are 3-0 to start the season for the second time in three years.

And there should be some more wins on the schedule, too, considering the way they are playing: they have shutout their first three opponents, outscoring New Brunswick, Metuchen and JP Stevens by a combined total of 99-0.

So that brings us to the question: When was the last time that happened?

We pored through years of records. It hasn’t happened recently. So we dove back into the 1980s, then the 1970s, and then into the 1960s.

In 1964, Highland Park was led by star quarterback Rich Policastro, the younger brother of Joe Policastro, who was the Big Man On Campus in in the mid- and late 1950s with the Owls. Rich also went on to star at Rutgers, after transferring in from VMI.

In his first season on the banks, Policastro set six passing records. Then, in 1969, Rich Policastro was chosen first team All-East, throwing 14 touchdown passes that year, and delivering the Knights a 29-0 victory over Princeton in the nationally-televised Centennial Game, celebrating the 100th anniversary of football. He also threw a record five touchdown strikes in a game against Colgate that year. (He now is tied for third on that list with Mike McMahon (Villanova, 2000) and two separate games with Gary Nova (Arkansas 2012, Fresno State 2013), while the top two spots are owned by Mike Teel (six against Pittsburgh, and seven against Louisville in 2008).

A year earlier, in his first season after transferring from VMI, Policastro established six passing marks – 15 touchdown passes, 994 yards, four TD passes in a game, 17 completions and 30 pass attempts in a game, and 309 yards in a game. In 1969, the Highland Park native threw a record five TD passes against Colgate.

But back to the three shutouts.

While there were numerous instances of back-to-back shutouts, the first time we found at least three in a row came in 1964, and amazingly they not only had three, nor four, nor five, but seven shutouts that year, all in a row. The run started after a season-opening non-shutout win, 19-14, over South Plainfield.

October 3: South River, 13-0
October 10: North Hunterdon, 27-0
October 17: Piscataway, 40-0
October 24: Carteret, 20-0
October 30: Sayreville, 27-0
November 7: St. Peter’s, 39-0
November 14: Clifford Scott, 33-0

The Owls finished 9-0 in 1964, capping the season with an 18-4 win on Thanksgiving over arch-rival Metuchen, and they were Central Jersey Group 2 champions, ten years before New Jersey would usher in the playoff era in 1974.

September 11, 2026September 10, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

Coming off first undefeated season since 1968, Manville still has work to do as new leaders emerge with rival Bound Brook coming to town

Taking an encore after a season like Manville had last year isn’t always easy.

After all, the Mustangs had a season for the ages last year, going 9-0 in the regular season – their first undefeated campaign since 1968 – and winning their first playoff game in school history, coming over Asbury Park in the first round of the Central Jersey Group 1 playoffs.

Repeating is never easy, but it’s especially difficult when 95 percent of the team’s offense has graduated.

They’ve got some players, but head coach Dave Markowitch is still figuring out how it will all come together, as new leaders emerge in 2026. At 1-1 thus far – with a season-opening blowout win at Keansburg and a narrow loss to Brearley that we’ll get to in a moment, their next test comes Friday night when arch-rival Bound Brook comes to town.

That’s our Friday night Bellamy & Son Paving Big Central Game of the Week, and you can hear it live on Central Jersey Sports Radio beginning with pregame at 6:45 pm. Kickoff is at 7, with Mike Pavlichko and Vin Ebenau on the call; click here to listen.

Certainly, Manville is at no loss for talent. Senior QB Jonathan Gosk – though they don’t throw the ball a lot – has tossed for 136 yards, connecting on 6-of-12 passing for 136 yards and two touchdowns in his first year in the starting role, but perhaps more importantly, no interceptions. And three backs – Cassius Carter, Matty Gorbatuck and Aidan Johnson – all have upwards of 100 yards rushing across two games, while the Mustangs as a team have averaged 300 yards a game in the first two.

But there have been some other mistakes, namely in the special teams department. Last week, in a 21-18 loss at Brearley, the Mustangs missed two PATs, and a two-point try on their third and final touchdown of the game also failed.

And not directly related to Xs and Os, there’s the Jimmies and the Joes: Manville has seniors, and has leaders, but head coach Dave Markowitch says they’re still working on communications, having those leaders assert themselves, while holding each other accountable.

Surely, they’ll work through it, but against Bound Brook (0-2) Friday night, a team Markowitch knows has athletes, it’ll be yet another early season test for the Mustangs.

Click below to hear Manville head coach Dave Markowitch talk about the Bound Brook game with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko: