Tag: Longevity Award

by Mike Pavlichko

Manville’s Josh D’Ambrosio still has sports to play, but four-year starter takes CJSR’s 2025 Longevity Award

“You never had the makings of a varsity athlete.” -Junior Soprano

“Josh has been a varsity athlete since he stepped on the gridiron as a freshman.” Dave Markowitch

The Manville coach has it right.

Josh D’Ambrosio got into the game as a ninth grader at outside linebacker, and has had an extraordinary career. This season – at free safety – he had 32 tackles, 13 solo, nine TFLs and two interceptions for a defense that allowed just nine touchdowns all season. He’s been there his entire four-year career in blue and gold.

But it was on offense where he may have helped the team most all year. He threw for 720 yards and nine touchdowns without a single interception in 51 pass attempts, but also carried 156 times for 1,268 yards and 18 scores, with a long of 74.

The Wing-T isn’t an easy offense to run, but D’Ambrosio did it well in his three years as the starting signal caller. In his career, he’s accumulated over 4,300 yards.

But even more importantly, he developed over time into a vocal leader, the person his teammates looked to in good times or bad.

And in the end, he went out making history – helping lead the team to its first undefeated regular season since 1968, and a program record for wins with 10, the last one coming at home against Asbury Park, for the Mustangs’ first playoff win in school history.

Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Chris Tsakonas talk with Manville senior Josh D;Ambrosio:

Honorable Mentions:

  • Logan Stevens, Bernards: In a three-year varsity career, he never lost a single regular season game. A runningback/defensive back, Stevens rushed for 2,386 yards in his career, also grabbing 59 passes for 814 yards, scoring 39 career touchdowns and 236 points. On defense this year, he had 34 solo tackles, three interceptions, nine pass breakups, a TFL and a forced fumble. He also excelled on special teams, with 642 kick return yards – for a 23.8 average – with the Mountaineers’ getting average field position of their own 36-yard line.
  • Andrew Avent, Rahway: Spending four years on varsity, Avent came on the scene as a baby-faced freshman. He leaves as a baby-faced senior with a million-dollar smile, and several program records, including career rushing yards (4,524), single-season rushing yards (1,961), career touchdowns (77) and points scored.
  • Nate Endgdahl, Ridge: Sophomores rarely play line on the varsity Red Devils team, but Engdhal did, making him the first defensive lineman in first-year head coach Sutherland’s time at Ridge (five years, the first four as Defensive Coordinator) to have started three consecutive years. Sutherland calls him a “once-in-a-decade player.” This season, he had four sacks in six games played, logging 33 tackles and six TFLs.
  • Filipe Granadiero, South River: The senior linebacker led his team with 91 tackles this season, and also owns the career record with 264, taking the mantle from his brother, Marcus, who also was a Rams’ linebacker for longtime head coach Rich Marchesi.
by Mike Pavlichko

Overcoming adversity, Ja’Kir Thomas’ stellar four-year career earns Carteret senior CJSR’s 2024 Longevity Award

Most high school football players spend two or three years on varsity, maybe starting for one or two of them.

The exceptional ones might be on the big boy squad as a freshman, and start as a sophomore.

Ja’Kir Thomas is none of those.

He was a Rambler varsity player for all four years of high school, and started all four years as well, but it’s more than that which earned him the Central Jersey Sports Radio Longevity Award for 2024.

“Old school tough.” “Fast and physical.” Those are the phrases opposing coaches use to talk about Thomas, whose head coach Kevin Freeman says he is “one of the top leaders he’s seen at Carteret.”

Through all that, he battled through two injuries this year – and returned from both – and a broken collarbone last year.

Freeman says he’s been the best player on the field since he was a sophomore, and in 2024, he had 100 rushing yards in all but two games – both contests in which the Ramblers led big early, and pulled him and other starters from the game.

Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko talk with Carteret senior Ja’Kir Thomas:

Honorable Mentions:

  • Chase Young, St. Thomas Aquinas: A four-year contributor, the senior is a three-year starter, and has rushed for over 2,000 yards and 30 touchdowns in his career. He’s also logged 100-plus tackles on defense. He was a backup when he was thrown into the fire as a sophomore, had an outstanding junior year, then took on lead blocking duties for sophomore Chukwuma Odoh. He was having a career night in a game at Elizabeth earlier this year when he fainted and collapsed, but only missed one week before returning to action.
  • Jonathan LoStocco, Somerville: A two-way lineman, he has 35 starts on the offensive line, and head coach Matt Bloom points out that if he didn’t tear his ACL in Week Three of his junior season, he’d probably have 41, a big number for a high school player. LoStocco has been on the OL since he was a freshman, and was a huge part of the Pioneers’ resurgence this year.
by Mike Pavlichko

Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Longevity Award goes to Bernards’ Connor Laverty

Longevity in football isn’t easy. Injuries are such a huge part of the game.

And lest we forget, we’re all watching 14- to 18-year-old athletes out there. Not everyone is on the same talent or maturity level to handle the big stage.

Connor Laverty was never one you’d have to worry about, though.

A four-year letter-winner for Bernards, and a three-year starter at quarterback, Laverty went 28-5 in the role, leading the team to a school record 12 wins in 2023, and the North 2, Group 2 title, the first sectional playoff crown in Mountaineer history. (Bernards was declared champions in the pre-playoff era in 1969 and 1970.)

In that championship game, Laverty threw a go-ahead touchdown pass late that helped withstand Lakeland’s field goal as time expired, sending it to overtime, where he ran in the game-winning score.

Simoneau says he didn’t miss a single snap due to injury in all that time, as he piled up over 1,000 career rushing yards. This season alone, he threw for 1,727 yards and 17 touchdowns, with just one pick.

Scroll down below the interview for Honorable Mentions.

Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko talk with Bernards senior Connor Laverty:

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • Will Deady, Ridge, FB/S: Deady closed his Red Devil career with 2,616 rushing yards and 32 touchdowns, while grabbing 44 passes for another 745 yards and three scores. On defense, he had 105 tackles, five interceptions, a forced fumble and a touchdown. After breaking in his sophomore season, he recorded back-to-back thousand-yard rushing seasons his junior and senior years.
  • A.J. Bosch, Woodbridge, WR/RB/FS/KR/PR: Yes, Bosch does a little of everything. A three-year starter for head coach Joe LaSala, Bosch tallied 877 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns in his career, made made most of his impact as a receiver: 134 catches and 27 touchdowns for his time as a Barron, both school career records. He was 45 yards shy of 2,000 receiving yards in his career. On defense, he logged 70 tackles and five interceptions, plus a touchdown.
  • Patrick Smith, South Plainfield, LB/RB: The only four-year starter honored, Smith finished his career with 2,523 rushing yards and 24 touchdowns. He also had 299 yards on kick returns this year, a season after leading the state in kick return average.
  • Michael Schmelzer, Jr., Montgomery, QB: With his team 0-4 in his sophomore season, Schmelzer led his team to wins in their next three games, and made the playoffs. He finished 18-6-1 as a starting quarterback, and is the only QB in program history to lead the Cougars to back-to-back-to-back playoff berths. He also owns the school record for career touchdown passes with 51.
by Mike Pavlichko

Sean Levonaitis – Hillsborough’s heart and soul – grabs Longevity Award

by Mike Pavlichko

He got his first varsity touch his freshman year, and his first start in Hillsborough’s first-ever meeting with Colonia his sophomore year.

From start to finish, he compiled 3,169 career rushing yards, and 37 touchdowns, narrowly missing a third straight thousand-yard season that he would have captured had it not been for a global pandemic. (He finished with 958 yards in a season where he was on pace for a career high had it been a normal year.)

And it felt like Sean Levonaitis did all of that in about six seasons in Hillsborough.

He actually did it in four, it just seemed like he was around forever.

Maybe that was because his brother Scot was a Raider standout at wide receiver, who played his senior year in 2014 and finished with 1,811 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns.

But there were three years between the brothers, lest they be confused, although Scot was always one Sean looked up to.

Sean, a 5-7, 175 pound senior is the first winner of the Central Jersey Sports Radio Big Central “Longevity Award,” given to the conference player who has made significant contributions to his team for at least three seasons at the varsity level, at any position on either side of the ball.

Click below to hear Dom Savino’s conversation with Sean Levonaitis about his long Raider career:

Three other players were considered Honorable Mentions for the Longevity Award: Bernards QB Teddy Gouldin, Watchung Hills QB Chad Martini, and North Plainfield linebacker Adam Elsais.

Gouldin put together a career for the record books, quite literally. He finished his career with 4,733 passing yards, 54 career TD passes and 68 touchdowns overall in his career, part of a portfolio including more than a half-dozen Mountaineer all time records and/or firsts.

REWIND: Bernards cruises past Johnson behind Gouldin, balanced attack

Martini nearly reached the 5,000 yard mark in the passing game, hurling for 4,941 yards, including 1,544 his sophomore year, as well as 21 career touchdowns. He was a four-year starter, and a captain for the last three, as well as a leader for Rich Seubert’s squad on the field and in the classroom.

Elsais helped lead North Plainfield to its best season in a decade, a 7-1 campaign that may not have happened without him. Elsais stuck through the lean years, with the program going 4-6 last year, but 3-18 combined his freshman and sophomore years. Through it all, he was a defensive stalwart, amassing 323 tackles in three years as a starter. He also led by example in the classroom, ranking third in his class in GPA, according to his head coach, Jimmy DiPaolo.

LISTEN: Elsais, Canucks cruising to best start since 2010