Tag: Carteret

August 30, 2021August 30, 2021 by Mike Pavlichko

Week Zero is in the books; Big Central goes 1-3 in Battle at the Beach, while Carteret begins new era with a big win

Only ten of the 60 teams in the Big Central opened their seasons on Week Zero, and only one of the four that played in Ocean City this weekend came home a winner.

But perhaps the biggest pleasant surprise was Carteret, which shutout JP Stevens in its first game since November of 2019.

The Ramblers got three first-quarter touchdowns from senior Kanya Groover, who carried five times in the game for 112 yards, en route to a 37-0 shutout win over JP Stevens at “The Pit” Friday night.

It was a night of firsts for the Ramblers:

It was the Ramblers’ first win since October 25th, 2019, and the first victory for new coach Kevin Freeman.

It was their largest margin of victory in almost five years, since a 40-0 win over North Brunswick on September 23, 2016. That was also their most recent shutout win before Friday night.

Down at the Battle of the Beach in Ocean City, a showcase put on by the West Jersey Football League Coaches Association, Woodbridge was the only one of four league teams to earn a win, beating Winslow Township 26-14 Sunday.

Scotch Plains-Fanwood dropped its opener Sunday 52-0 to Cedar Creek, while on Saturday, Union battled Millville to a tough 38-21 loss – in which both teams reeled off a number of big plays – and Bernards got doubled up 40-20 by Penns Grove.

In other area action…

Somerville blanked Olney Charter of PA Friday night 25-0 down in Philly.

And on Saturday, new South Plainfield head coach – and Tiger alum – Bill Hamilton picked up the first win of his tenure, a 35-14 win over South River at Denny Stadium.

Central Jersey Sports Radio’s coverage of Big Central Conference football kicks into high gear Friday night, with the season debut of “The Big Central Game of the Week driven by Mark Montenero and his team at the world-famous Autoland,” as Piscataway comes off its one-year COVID hiatus, hosting #6 Phillipsburg, with game time at 6:00, air-time at 5:45 with Mike Pavlichko and Justin Sontupe calling all the action.

And don’t forget to catch our podcast, “This Week in the Big Central driven bu Autoland,” which drops on Thursday. We’ll have a look at the week gone by, a preview of Week One games, interviews and analysis, hosted by Mike Pavlichko.

Click here to subscribe at any one of your favorite podcast sites, including Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify.

May 6, 2021May 6, 2021 by Mike Pavlichko

New Carteret head coach will bring back old-style Carteret football

Run the ball, and stop the run.

It was a recipe for success for many years for successful Carteret coaches like Jeff Weiner, Bob Molarz and Matt Yascko.

So, while new Rambler head coach Kevin Freeman looks to the future, he’s also looking to the past, as part of an effort to keep things simple for a 2021 squad that will be his first as a head coach, and the first varsity season for virtually the entire team.

Click below to hear new Carteret head coach Kevin Freeman talk about how he got the job, and his plans for the Ramblers in 2021 and beyond:

Freeman’s hire was approved last week by the Board of Education.

No stranger to the Carteret program, Freeman was an all-state linebacker for Weiner in the 1990s, then played defensive end at West Virginia for Don Nehlen. He’s shown here in his playing days for the Mountaineers.

He was hired in 2019 by then-Carteret head coach Matt Yascko to coach the offensive line and linebackers.

Freeman will have a unique challenge, in that Carteret shut down all fall sports last season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, any senior on the team would have only played in the Rambler program as a sophomore.

For now, Freeman’s emphasis is on the weight room, which he believes will be the great equalizer for Carteret in 2021. He’ll keep the game plan simple: run it, and stop the run on defense.

Freeman returns only two players with varsity experience.

Click below to hear Freeman talk about those two players: OL/DE Jehu Andrews and LB/FB Mark Gonzalez:

January 11, 2021March 3, 2021 by Mike Pavlichko

Perth Amboy is second Middlesex County school to bow out of Winter Sports

by Mike Pavlichko

On the heels of Carteret’s decision last week to cancel all early Winter season sports – with the exception of wrestling, slated to start practicing in March – Perth Amboy has become the second Middlesex County district in less than a week to do so, cancelling all sports in the NJSIAA’s “Season 2.”

In a letter to the community posted on the Perth Amboy district website Monday, Superintendent David Roman announced that due to an increase in COVID cases in the community, the district would extend is remote learning until the end of the third marking period, which ends on Tuesday, April 20th.

As part of that announcement, Roman wrote that “due to the uncertainty of this pandemic, and the health risk it may case to our students and staff at this time, all winter sports will be cancelled.”

He added, “We will re-assess the status of spring sports as we get closer to that time.”

Carteret and Piscataway had cancelled fall sports this school year, but while Carteret will remain on the sidelines in the winter – with the exception, so far, of wrestling – Piscataway is set to play.

Perth Amboy played sports in the fall.

Some districts, like Old Bridge and North Brunswick, have been holding outdoor basketball practices to lessen time spend indoors and attempt to mitigate the risks of COVID transmission in such settings.

Middlesex has delayed practice by a week to January 19th, meaning their basketball programs would miss the first week of the season, which starts January 26th, in order to continue their preseasons.

August 31, 2020January 23, 2021 by Mike Pavlichko

COVID takes some lustre off Big Central’s inaugural season

by Mike Pavlichko

There were supposed to be some highly intriguing matchups in 2020.

That was the promise of the Big Central Football Conference, the long awaited merger that follows the trend around the rest of the Garden State: large superconferences swallowing up smaller ones and encompassing large swaths of New Jersey.

The Big Central gives us 60 teams that used to be in the Greater Middlesex and Mid State Conferences.

The names had a nice ring to them. The GMC will survive in all sports besides football. The Mid-State also was a football-only league, as Hunterdon, Warren and Union Counties make up the Skyland Conference in other sports.

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