After averaging 42 points a game in their first two contests, the Old Bridge offense was held in check save for a couple of big plays Friday night in Monmouth Junction.
But those big plays were enough to power the fourth-ranked Knights to a 21-0 win at South Brunswick in the Big Central National Gold Division opener for both schools, on the Bellamy & Son Paving Game of the Week heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio.
The first big play came on the second play from scrimmage. After a six-yard run by Chase Rizzo, he hauled in a touchdown pass going 57 yards to open the scoring and give the Knights a 7-0 lead just 12 seconds in.
South Brunswick put together a five minute drive and moved the ball, but had a field goal blocked to end it, a microcosm of what their night would be like.
But their defense held firm for a while. They held Old Bridge to a turnover on downs, then had a nearly six-minute drive, but also turned it over on downs, and Old Bridge did the same on their end.
In the closing minutes of the first half, with a fourth-and-20 at the South Brunswick 39, Griffin Nugent came on to punt, but it was a fake, and a completed pass set up the Knights near the goal line, where Rizzo ran it in for his second score of the game with 1:05 left before the break, to make it 14-0 at halftime.
In the second half, it was much of the same: long drives by the Vikings, and an inability to score, but on defense, they again held firm, keeping Old Bridge to a pair of three-and-outs by early in the fourth quarter.
More late chances led to missed opportunities, including two more interceptions by South Brunswick QB Brendan Shearstone, and Old Bridge punched in one more score – on another big play, a 59-yard touchdown run by Rizzo – to provide the final margin.
For Old Bridge, they were also without the services of starting QB Aiden Rios for a bit of the first half and the entire second. The coaching staff told Central Jersey Sports Radio after the game that he banged up his non-throwing shoulder. And his status for a home game next Friday against No. 8 St. Thomas Aquinas is unknown.
Click below for postgame reaction from Old Bridge head coach Matt Donaghue, junior Chase Rizzo and senior Griffin Nugent, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen: