Tag: Governor Livingston

by Mike Pavlichko

Highlanders do it with defense: Governor Livingston stymies South Plainfield, 25-6

Governor Livingston entered Week 5 play Thursday night in 16th place in the North Group 3 playoff chase, despite being 4-1.

All they can do is win games at this point, and so far, just about all they have been doing is winning games.

The Highlanders made it their fifth in a row with a 25-6 win at South Plainfield’s Frank Jost Field Thursday night, pulling away in the second half and blanking the Tigers after halftime.

Quarterback Ryan Balent found Patrick Smith four minutes into the game on a 15-yard touchdown pass, and after a failed two-point pass, they led 6-0.

That was all they would muster the rest of the game. GL scored 25 unanswered, starting with the equalizer, a one-yard run by Jack Dally after quarterback Lucciano Santamaria – a fellow junior – set him up with a huge run on fourth down to get near the goal line. The extra point made it 7-6 with 2:39 to go in the quarter.

After a scoreless second, Governor Livingston ratcheted up the defense, and got some insurance. A Mason Barker field goal made it 10-6. A touchdown pass to Matthew Shaffer made it 17-6. A safety made it 19-6, and Owen Chait capped it off with one last touchdown.

The win gives the Highlanders their best start since 2006, when they started 8-1, but dropped their final two games, losing to Raritan in the Central Jersey Group 2 semifinals. It’s also their first five-game win streak since then, a year they started 1-1 but won their next seven games through the first round of the playoffs.

South Plainfield fell to 3-3.

Click below for postgame reaction with Marcus Borden from Frank Jost Field, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:

by Mike Pavlichko

Mid-Season Playoff Analysis: Summit, Cranford, Carteret may have chance at top seeds in Group 3

It’s our first week of playoff analysis here at Central Jersey Sports Radio – this year, presented by our friends at My Family Appliances in Edison – and it seems like more teams have a legitimate shot at earning top seeds.

That may just be anecdotal evidence, and there’s still a lot of football to be played, but as of now, at least three Group 3 schools may have a chance.

But first…

Playoff Qualification Primer

The NJSIAA uses the United Power Ranking (UPR) to determine where teams are seeded. Without getting into all the behind the scenes calculations and caveats, each team’s UPR is based on two factors: their rank in the supersection based on power points and on OSI.

Power points are an average and based on the traditional formula that’s been used – albeit altered from time-to-time – over the years. Teams get six points for every win, group points based on the group of the opponent, and residuals – 3 for every win by a team you beat, 1 for every win by a team you lost to.

OSI is the Opponent Strength Index, and average of all the opponents played. Teams get the full value of a team’s Strength Index for a win, half for a loss. A win over an opponent with an SI of 80 gets and 80, a loss gets you 40 points. SI varies based on results throughout the year.

Teams are ranked in each category. OSI values are worth 60 percent of the formula, power points 40 percent. That added number makes the UPR, with lower numbers better. The best UPR a team can have is a 1, which is first in both power points and OSI.

The UPR is calculated for the NJSIAA by the website Gridiron New Jersey. Central Jersey Sports Radio also does its own unofficial calculations throughout the season, and will unveil its playoff projections in our annual special broadcast, this year on Saturday, October 21 from 5-7 pm, presented by My Family Appliances in Edison.

North Group 3

While Old Tappan (4-0, 10-game win streak, second longest active in the state) sits at the top, Summit (3-1) is No. 2 overall at the moment in the section, with a 2.2 UPR, right behind Old Tappan (1.4) and ahead of Warren Hills (4-1, 2.4 UPR) by a smidge. Cranford (2-2) is just behind the, but it’s a wider gap, as they have a 6.4 UPR, which is decent ground to make up.

The Hilltoppers have a good schedule coming up after winless Scotch Plains-Fanwood at home this weekend, with strong teams like Linden at home next week, then two road games to closer it out at Colonia and St. Joseph-Metuchen. Old Tappan’s schedule may be slightly lower in quality the rest of the way out, and Warren Hills is fairly similar, too. Summit may have to win out to earn a top seed, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

Cranford has a tough schedule, too, including closing with Group 5 North Brunswick. The Cougars may need some help, but it’t not out of the question for them either if things break right.

The next area team in the standings is Hillside at No. 12. The Comets are 3-1, and should fairly safely be in the playoffs if they continue to play at the level they have been; their lone loss is to Ridge.

Governor Livingston is an interesting study. The Highlanders are 4-1, having won four straight after losing their opener. It”s their best start since going 8-1 to start 2006, a season they finished 8-3. It’s their first four-game win streak since 2008, when the Highlanders went 7-5 and lost to Caldwell in the North 2, Group 2 title game.

All that and GL is only in 16th place.

It’s mainly due to their schedule: three of their four wins have come against teams that are a combined 0-14 in North Plainfield, JFK and JP Stevens. The schedule gets tougher though, with Carteret and Bernards – teams with top-seed playoff aspirations – among their final four games. Both are at home, the Ramblers next week, and Bernards on the Saturday of Cutoff Weekend.

A win against one of those might be needed in order to combat the weak schedule. Stay tuned, they could be this year’s cause celebre in the Big Central, a la Spotswood last year and Manville two years ago. They finished with seven and six wins, respectively, at the cutoff, and didn’t make the postseason, and scheduling had a lot to do with it.

South Group 3

It might be a bit of a longshot, and playing winless JP Stevens won’t help them this week, no matter how close they keep it, but Carteret sits in sixth with a 7.4 UPR, 4.8 points behind second-place Holmdel.

Then again, after the Hawks this Friday night (7 pm on CJSR) the schedule gets tougher. There’s 4-1 Governor Livingston, then Rahway and Hillside.

A lot may depend on what others do.

Somerville (3-2) sits in eighth at the moment, so they’re right on the bubble of a first round home game. They could go either way at this still-early date.

South Plainfield, like Governor Livingston, is another plus-.500 team in rough shape. At 3-2, the Tigers sit in 24th place, a full nine UPR points out of the playoff window. Worse yet, their remaining schedule is not good. Other than GL this week, they have Voorhees, at Perth Amboy, and home to Monroe the last three weeks; those three teams are a combined 6-9. It’s not awful, but there’s no “big win” either, to give them a big boost.

by Mike Pavlichko

Who’s got the best defense in the Big Central Conference? A closer look through Week Three

There are a half-dozen teams in the Big Central Conference with 4-0 records through Week 3 – go ask the NJSIAA about the math – and all of them reside in among the top 15 out of the 59 teams in the league in terms of scoring defense.

Through four games, the Spotswood Chargers have allowed the fewest points, averaging 5.5 per game allowed, just under the 6.8 St. Thomas Aquinas has given up. Both teams are 4-0, and each has pitched two shutouts. Put another way, they’ve each blanked half their opponents so far.

Spotswood shut out Bordentown in Week Zero and Highland Park last week. Aquinas has blanked New Providence in Week One and Scotch Plains-Fanwood the following week.

Also at 4-0 is Bernards, which checks in at third on the list at 7.8 points per game, although the Mountaineers haven’t shut out anyone yet. The most they’ve allowed this year in a game is 12 to Hillside, while allowing seven to South River and six each to Jefferson and Voorhees.

The only top ten teams to have logged a shutout on the year are St. Thomas (2) and Sayreville (1).

Seven teams are allowing fewer than 10 points a game at the moment, with North Brunswick next on the list at eight, Governor Livingston at 8.8, Phillipsburg at 9.3 and Union at 9.8 points per game.

Ridge has the highest defensive scoring average among teams in the Central Jersey Sports Radio Top Ten. But that doesn’t mean the Red Devils are giving up a lot of points: just 11.4 through three games, with 21 of the total 35 points they’ve allowed being scored in their lone loss, by Phillipsburg.

Big Central Scoring Defense thru Week Three

by Mike Pavlichko

“The Big Central in 2 Minutes” – Week 4: Rumbling on the Raritan, Top Defenses

It’s Week Four – yes we’re almost halfway through the regular season for most teams – and time for another episode of “The Big Central in Two Minutes,” as veteran CJSR sportscaster Mike Pavlichko shares notes, stats, and observations on area high school football.

This week, we look at Sunday’s Rumble on the Raritan, Big Play Ray, the Phillipsburg/Montgomery game with almost four dozen penalties, top defenses, and a nearly 100-year-old rivalry played under the lights for the very first time.

Click below to listen to the Week Four edition of “The Big Central in Two Minutes”:

by Mike Pavlichko

Group 3 playoff analysis: Somerville needs some wins, and badly, while Cranford battles for a home game

With the midway point of the high school football season upon us, we start to take a closer look at playoff standing and the chase for the postseason, with Cutoff Weekend just four weeks away. Below is a look at Group 3:

NORTH (Click here for official standings)

Defending North 3 Regional Champion West Morris remains the class of the section this year, as the Wolfpack sit 5-0, with a UPR of 1.0, and Old Tappan behind them with a 2.4 UPR. Two undefeated teams lie ahead, both 4-0 at the moment: Morris Knolls this Friday night, and Randolph on the road two weeks later.

Cranford – which won the North 2, Group 3 section last year, but lost to West Morris in the regional final at Met Life Stadium – is the highest-ranked Big Central team here, at 2-2. They have wins over Summit and Woodbridge, with losses to North Hunterdon and St. Thomas Aquinas. If those schools continue to have good years, it will bode well for Cranford, with the goal here to earn at least a first-round playoff game, which necessitates a top eight finish.

They visit Rahway this Friday, which just took its first loss of the season Saturday on Central Jersey Sports Radio, 20-0 to winless Summit. That’s a big game, and then there’s a huge one cutoff weekend at home against North Brunswick. Should they beat the Raiders, that could seal the deal.

To find the next team in the section, you need to go all the way down to No. 17 to find Summit, a full UPR point behind Wayne Hills, with a 15.6 UPR. The Hilltoppers’ win over Rahway could be a turning point for the season, with winnable games against Scotch Plains-Fanwood (2-2) and Linden (1-3) the next two weeks before facing some of the big boys – Colonia (5-0) and St. Joseph-Metuchen (3-1) – the last two weeks.

After an 0-2 start, which has hurt them, Governor Livingston has all of a sudden won three straight. But they’re in 21st place, and the Highlanders have a tough schedule the rest of the way, though. South Plainfield, Carteret, South River and Bernards are a combined 14-4. The good news is this: beating those good teams will boost their chances a lot.

SOUTH (Click here for official standings)

This is a playoff section where – for the last several years, it’s been Somerville mostly trying to get over the hump to earn a top-seed despite their weak schedule. And more often than not, there was nothing they could do about except win and hope for the best.

That will be the thinking again this year, but that’s just to make the playoffs. After five straight playoff appearances (not counting 2020 where there were no playoffs) with one title and three finals berths, the Pioneers are in drastic danger of snapping that string under first-year head coach Ian Pace.

They sit in 23rd place, with a 22.2 UPR, ironically right behind Camden East Side (nee Woodrow Wilson), the team they lost to in their last finals appearance, in 2019. They will have to make up oodles of ground to get into the top 16, with Manasquan holding that last playoff position with four weeks to go, with a 16.8 UPR.

The good news is that if Somerville can get it in gear, their tough schedule will help it immensely. They play five Group 5 schools to finish the regular season, starting this weekend at Elizabeth, which just knocked off St. Joe’s in Metuchen Saturday afternoon for its first win of the season. Then, they have Westfield and Hillsborough at home before closing on the Friday night of Cutoff Weekend at South Brunswick. All will boost their power points and OSI – if they can beat them.

The highest-ranekd team here is South Plainfield in ninth, as Bill Hamilton has the Tigers 4-0 in his second season as head coach. Can they crack the top eight to earns first-round home playoff game? Too early to say, as their schedule the rest of the way is a bit weak after a Saturday afternoon road game at resurgent Governor Livingston. That’s the best team left on their schedule, with a road game at Voorhees the next week, followed by Perth Amboy at home and Monroe on the road.

Want a shot at a home game? GL is a must win.

Carteret is also having a fine season. Kevin Freeman’s squad is 4-1, their lone loss to South Plainfield, and they sit in 13th. Considering that among the teams behind them are Manasquan (0-3) and Triton (1-3) and the minimum number of wins to make the playoffs is two this season (up from one last year) it would appear Carteret, should they continue their excellent play this year, is a good bet to make the playoffs, and end up on the road in the first round. Next up is Group 5 JP Stevens in Edison this Friday night, the third Group 5 team they’ll play this year. (They’ve already beaten Perth Amboy and Plainfield.)

by Mike Pavlichko

Just for kicks: Big-time boot earns Governor Livingston’s Quigley Week 9 Bellamy & Son Paving Player of the Week Award

Sometimes it’s a big interception, or five or six touchdowns, or an outstanding performance in all three phases.

Sometimes, it’s just a kick.

And sometimes, it’s a really big kick, as was the case for Governor Livingston junior Liam Quigley on Saturday afternoon.

See, the Highlanders hadn’t won a game all season. So it wasn’t as if the playoffs were on the line, but it was still a really big kick.

Knotted up at 21-all with A.L. Johnson, with 2.8 seconds left and the ball on the 23 yard line, out came Liam Quigley to try a 40-yard field goal attempt.

By the time the clock read :00, the Highlanders had their first win of the season, and Quigley and his teammates ran all over the field celebrating.

Click below to see Quigley’s game-winning 40-yard field goal against A.L. Johnson, as well as some of his other long kicks in the game:

Click below to hear Liam Quickly talk about his game-winning 50-yard field goal against A.L. Johnson:


At the end of the season, all the Bellamy & Son Players of the Week will receive a custom football, and one of the winners will receive a $500 scholarship from Bellamy & Son Paving.

Honor Roll:

All season long, Zaon Laney has been a workhorse for Rahway, and in a big 40-21 win Saturday at Hillside it was no different. Laney – a Week 6 winner – rushed 35 times for 293 yards and three touchdowns – with a long of 65 – and had two catches for 11 yards as well. He had a 31-yard kick return, too, and was involved in four tackles on defense, adding a pass breakup and a 21-yard interception return.

You certainly couldn’t ignore Hashym Hobbs-Harris’ performance for No. 1 Somerville in the swirling rain Friday night, in a 45-22 win over Summit. He ran for 200 yards on just 13 carries, but more impressively, took over the game after Ethan MacNair left with an ankle injury. On Somerville’s next offensive play from scrimmage, he ran 63 yards for a score. And on the Pioneer’s next touch he went 72 yards to paydirt.

There were a lot of big nights on the ground Friday, with the weather hampering passing games all over the state. Lucas Hudkins rolled off 226 yards on just 20 carries in a 35-13 win over Elizabeth, scoring three touchdowns. Ridge could be a dark horse in the upcoming state playoffs, and Hudkins is a big reason why.

by Mike Pavlichko

St. Thomas Aquinas pitches 7th straight shutout; blanks Governor Livingston 59-0 to tie playoff era Middlesex County shutout record

St. Thomas Aquinas pitched another shutout.

The Trojans blanked Governor Livingston in North Edison Friday night 59-0 to improve to 7-0, with every game a shutout.

That’s the most since Piscataway logged seven whitewashes in 2004, a year the Chiefs – with three future NFL Draft picks in Malcolm Jenkins, Kyle Wilson and Anthony Davis – went 12-0 and won the second state title under head coach Dan Higgins.

Aquinas will try to make it a regular season sweep – something no team in Middlesex County has ever done, at least in the modern era – when the Trojans take on 7-1 Delaware Valley next week at home.

One of the leaders Friday night was junior Najee Lovejoy. The defensive back – who also had a touchdown catch playing wide receiver Friday night – recorded six tackles, had an interception and two pass breakups in the win. He also had five punt returns for 118 yards against the Highlanders.

Click below to hear Najee Lovejoy talk about the win – and the Trojans’ defense – with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:

by Mike Pavlichko

Del Val runs record to 4-0 with 40-7 cruise past Governor Livingston

Jack Bill was at it again.

The Autoland “Big Central Player of the Week” two weeks ago in a win over North Plainfield, the quarterback threw for four touchdowns in a 40-7 win for Delaware Valley at home Friday night over Governor Livingston.

The Terriers are 4-0 with a tough Bernards ballclub coming to town next weekend.

Click below for more details on the game as Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko speaks with Del Val skipper Mike Haughey:

by Mike Pavlichko

Woodbridge takes sole possession of top spot in CJ Sports Radio Top Ten

Though they’ve only played one game, the Woodbridge Barrons sit alone atop the Central Jersey Sports Radio Top Ten.

Woodbridge shared the No. 1 position in the preseason and a week ago with Union, but took over on their own after the Farmers were knocked off by unranked Bridgewater-Raritan, which jumped into the poll at No. 5. The Barrons were dominant in a 34-0 win at in-town rival Colonia.

It was a tumultuous week in the Big Central Football Conference, as none of the ten teams in the Week 1 rankings retained the same spot in Week 2.

North Brunswick also entered the rankings after a win over No. 8 New Brunswick, 28-7.

Below are the Week 2 rankings.

This post has been updated to reflect Cranford and South Brunswick also receiving votes.

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.

Continue reading “COVID takes some lustre off Big Central’s inaugural season” →