Ryan Foster – Central Jersey Sports Radio

Week Zero games can be a crap shoot. Sometimes it all goes right, sometimes the play is real sloppy.

For the Spotswood football team, it was about 98 percent the first option.

In their first meeting since the COVID season, 2020, the Chargers scored three first half touchdowns and shut out visiting Middlesex, 38-0, powering through a long delay for an injured Blue Jays’ player in the third quarter, then rain for much of the second half to hang on to the shutout in the 2025 season opener for both schools, as heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio.

Senior quarterback Se’mir Tolbert-Brimage capped off three first half scoring drives – all of which started on the Middlesex side of the field – with touchdown runs of six, three and 23 yards, to give Spotswood a 21-0 lead at the break. He opened the second-half scoring with a 26-yard TD strike to sophomore Ryan Foster.

Others got into the scoring after that. Senior kicker Gavin Pereira booted a 45-yard field goal with 1:34 to go in the third, hitting from the right hash mark into a left-to-right crosswind, just getting it over the crossbar inside the left post. Then, with 10:26 to go in the game, Foster scored on the defensive side, with a 54-yard scoop and score.

Tolbert-Brimage finished 4-of-7 passing for 48 yards, with one unfortunate interception, a screen pass that went off the receiver’s fingertips, and bounced five yards away to a Blue Jay. He rushed for 119 yards on 12 carries to lead the team, while senior Sebby Saracino carried 12 times for 68 yards. Six different players logged at least two carries in the game.

*Spotswood senior QB Se’mir Tolbert-Brimage celebrates his third touchdown of the game in a 38-0 home win over Middlesex on August 28, 2025. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)*

Middlesex quarterback Matthew Petti, Jr. – a sophomore making his first varsity start – was 11-of-14 for 68 yards, with no TDs but also no turnovers. Most of that yardage came in the second half.

Sophomore Jo Jo Pham was the injured player in the second half. A long stoppage resulted, and word from the field was he had an elbow injury. Pham was taken off the field on a stretcher as a precaution.

Click below for postgame reaction presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen!