Tag: Scotch Plains-Fanwood

by Mike Pavlichko

Sims, Fischer, Holloman, Laverty and DeCaro recognized as Coach Matt Bastardi’s “Elite Performers of the Week” for Week 5

Coach Matt Bastardi of Elite QB recognizes four excellent quarterbacks as his “Elite Performers of the Week” for Week 5. They include Matt Sims of Brearley, Scotch Plains-Fanwood’s Weston Fischer, Connor Laverty of Bernards, Jeremy DeCaro of St. Joseph-Metuchen and – outside the Big Central but still in Central Jersey – Mike Hollomon of Pingry.

The St. Thomas Aquinas football team and head coach Tarig Holman are also recognized.

A former high school and college quarterback who has either played the position or coached it for over 40 years, Elite QB trains players at all position levels, with an emphasis on QBs.

Click below to listen to hear Matt Bastardi of Elite QB highlight his “Elite Performers of the Week” for Week 5:

by Mike Pavlichko

Scotch Plains-Fanwood ban from playoffs could help Montgomery squeak in, with a little help

NOTE: This story has been corrected to say a local story reported four players ejected, stead three.

Scotch Plains-Fanwood coach Austin Holman wanted to keep his players motivated. They’d have to be on good behavior if they had a hope of making the playoffs.

That was the case from Week Two on, after four players were ejected from a game 30-24 win over Plainfield all the way back on September 4th. The ejections made the game story on a local website, but that was the end of it. They didn’t talk about it again.

According to NJSIAA rules, any team with more than two disqualifications in a season is ineligible for the playoffs that season. The NJSIAA recently confirmed the ejections – and Scotch Plains-Fanwood’s ban from the 2021 playoffs – to Central Jersey Sports Radio.

Holman says two of his players came off the bench to get another player out of trouble on the field. But all three were ejected. Though there’s no appealing the officials’ decisions, Holman and school officials hoped they might be able to show video evidence and get the NJSIAA to overturn their postseason ban.

That effort bore no fruit this week, and Holman told his team the final result after Friday night’s 41-21 loss at Colonia, which left them 5-5 on the year, with a big win last week at Woodbridge they could be proud of.

The Raiders would have been in the playoffs, sitting in 13th after all the other Friday night results were calculated. Instead, it will open the door for whoever the 16th place team in the standings is.

Currently, that’s 17th place Bergenfield, which is 3-5. A win tomorrow at home against Demarest – also 3-5 – would keep them in 17th, and get them in the playoffs. Should they lose, they would drop to 18th, and Montgomery would move into 17th, and into the postseason.

Whoever gets the overall 16 seed would face overall top-seed Northern Highlands, which is 9-0 and ranked 8th in the state by NJ.com, the second-highest ranked public school in the state behind overall No. 4 Millville.

by Mike Pavlichko

This Week in the Big Central – Episode 10: The Cutoff 2021

Episode 10 of “This Week in the Big Central,” driven by Mark Montenero and his team at the world-famous Autoland, is all about Cutoff Weekend. Who’s in? Who’s not? Who’s on the bubble? Who’s getting that top seed.

Mike Pavlichko takes a quick look at the week gone by and explains the playoff snafu this week, and how difficult it is for anyone to get a handle on the voluminous UPR formula for determining playoff qualification, with its many twists and turns and special circumstances.

We hear from founding sponsor Elite QB, with Coach Matt Bastardi’s “Elite Performers of the Week,” and a look at the Bellamy & Son Paving Player of the Week, Scotch Plains-Fanwood’s Anthony Robinson, another all-around performer in a big win over division rival Woodbridge.

Mike wraps it up with a look at the Week Nine slate and all the playoff implications of those games.

by Mike Pavlichko

Week 6 North 4 Playoff Analysis: Woodbridge aiming for a top-seed, six BCC teams in bottom half

NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect today’s cancellation of the Shore Conference pod championships.

The only Big Central team with any virtual certainty of their playoff positioning in the North Group 4 supersection should be the Woodbridge Barrons. With a big game Friday night against undefeated Cranford (CJSR, 7 pm), Woodbridge (6-0) currently sits third in the standings.

With the top two in the section getting home games throughout the sectional finals, the Barrons aren’t that far off. But neither is Middletown South. Both teams have a UPR of 3.2, which is just two-tenths of a point behind second place Ramapo. That means if either gains one position in power point or OSI rank, they’ll likely surpass Ramapo.

Continue reading “Week 6 North 4 Playoff Analysis: Woodbridge aiming for a top-seed, six BCC teams in bottom half” →
by Mike Pavlichko

Return specialist Shawn Martin hopes to write next chapter at Southern Connecticut, but not before taking the diamond one last time

Shawn Martin returned four kickoffs for touchdowns last football season for Scotch Plains-Fanwood, amassing 414 yards on just six returns.

Sure, he only returned six, but that’s because no coach in his right mind would dare tell his players to kick the ball to the young man who would be the Central Jersey Sports Radio Special Teams Player of the Year.

But ask him now what his favorite return is? It’ll have nothing to do with football.

The 2019 football season was normal, of course, and 2020 was affected by COVID – but at least it happened.

Martin missed the entire baseball season last year when it got wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic, only getting in a handful of games in the Last Dance Baseball Tournament.

So, right now, his favorite return is the one he just made this week back to the baseball field with his Scotch Plains teammates. (They just played their first game this week after a COVID-related pause.)

Martin is headed to Southern Connecticut State University, to play wherever he can get on the field for the owls, after a tumultuous recruiting season that tended to be the norm for high school athletes around the country, unless you’re a four- or five-star kid.

Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko caught up with Martin this week before his Raiders’ baseball team left for an afternoon game at A.L. Johnson.

Click below to listen:

Scotch Plains-Fanwood kick return specialist Shawn Martin
by Mike Pavlichko

22 Big Central football players named to NJFCA Super 100 Team

by Mike Pavlichko

The Big Central Conference – in its first year of existence – was responsible for nearly a quarter of the players selected to New Jersey Football Coaches Association’s Super 100 Team, which is chosen annually in December.

The selections for 2020 were announced on Twitter Monday night.

Nominations are made by coaches who are members of the NJFCA, and comittees of coaches make the final selections based on NJSIAA playoff sections. For this season, with no playoffs, the NJFCS simply divided the state into quadrants based on geographical Northing numbers.

Only seniors can be named to the Super 100 Team, and those getting full scholarships to play football collegiately are automatically selected, according to NJFCA Commissioner John Jacob.

Cookie Desiderio and A.J. Pena of Somerville – Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Big Central Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, respectively – were among the 12 players selected in the Central section.

  • Somerville defensive end A.J. Pena, Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Defensive Player of the Year, was named Monday to the NJFCA Super 100 Team.
  • The state’s leader in TDs and touches per TD – Somerville RB and CJSR Offensive Player of the Year Cookie Desiderio – was chosen Monday for the NJFCA’s Super 100 Team.
  • Woodbridge RB Ali Lee, Jr. – shown here signing his National Letter of Intent to Stony Brook earlier this month – was named Monday to the NJFCA Super 100 Team.
  • Hillsborough’s Sean Levonaitis – winner of CJSR’s Longevity Award – was named Monday to the Super 100 Team by the NJFCA.
  • Watchung Hills QB Chad Martini was among the 22 Big Central Conference football players named to the NJFCA Super 100 Team in the league’s first season.

CJSR’s Mr. Versatility Ali Lee Jr. of Woodbridge also was selected, along with teammate Jordan Harris.

Rounding out the Central section were Austin Scott (South Plainfield), Majid Howard-Baker (South Brunswick), Omar Shehabeldin (North Brunswick), Dylan McFadden (Montgomery), Kyle DeGraw (Monroe, Keyshawn Dixon (JFK), Longevity Award winner Sean Levonaitis (Hillsborough) and Zach Zebro (East Brunswick).

There were ten players selected in the North 2 section, headlined by Rutgers-bound Desmond Igbinosun of Union, along with his teammate Diante Wilson.

Others included Shawn Martin (Scotch Plains-Fanwood), Andrew Taddeo (Ridge), Matt Quetel (Phillipsburg), Chad Martini and James Coslet (Watchung Hills), Omakus Langley II (Hillside) and Bruce Myers (Bridgewater-Raritan).

Each year, the Super 100 Team is honored with a dinner in the Spring, but whether that will happen in person or virtually – due to COVID-19 protocols – has not yet been determined.

by Mike Pavlichko

Many happy returns for Shawn Martin: Scotch Plains-Fanwood kick returner named Special Teams Player of the Year

The great program builder/re-builder Milt Theodosatos once said about kicking the ball to a great returner, “We kick the ball to him, that’s a human tragedy.”

Imagine four human tragedies in one season?

That’s what happened this year when opponents kicked the ball to Scotch Plains-Fanwood senior Shawn Martin. Not that they did it often.

The 5-11, 170-pound lightning bolt returned four kickoffs for touchdowns in 2020. He only had six returns all year.

Good job by the opponents, just not good enough.

Martin returned two kicks for touchdowns in a 42-38 loss to Cedar Grove in the Raiders’ first-ever home game under the lights at Perry Field. The returns were 95 and 92 yards.

A week later, he returned a kick 90 yards to paydirt in a 27-22 win over Linden, and he followed it up with an 82-yard kick return for a score against Princeton in a 61-20 victory over the Little Tigers.

Click below to hear Shawn Martin talk about his four kick returns for touchdowns this year, including which was his favorite:

Honorable Mentions for Special Teams Player of the Year went to senior kicker Jake Beckman of Ridge and junior kicker Jai Patel of South Brunswick.

Beckman is a three-year starter who went 12-for-16 on field goals in his career, and 89-of-102 on PATs. He kicked a game-winning field goal as time expired to beat Bridgewater-Raritan in 2018.

Patel is on the radar of several Power 5 schools with another year yet to be played scholastically. He was 7-of-8 of field goals in 2020, with a long of 42 yards, and perfect on 22 PATs. He also handled kickoffs, booting 19 of 32 for touchbacks, and averaged 41 yards per punt, all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA, according to head coach John Viotto.

by Mike Pavlichko

Cipot helps North Brunswick figure it out, and is named Coach of the Year

In The Sound of Music, the nuns in the abbey sang “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?”

In North Brunswick, head coach Mike Cipot had to figure out how to solve the problem of not having the graduated Myles Bailey.

All he did in his time with the Raiders was re-write more than a couple of key pages in the record books. Bailey is tops in career rushing yards (5,096), career rushing touchdowns (41), and career points (314). And as a safety, his 8 career interceptions rank 5th all-time in school history.

Bailey now is a grayshirt at Central Michigan, and he’s not the only top talent Cipot lost.

There’s Samod Wingo, a TE/DE who is at William Paterson, and Leon Lowery – who played in a handful of games late in the season for Syracuse.

But Cipot and his assistants found a way, leading North Brunswick to a 7-1 season, their only loss to Cranford, one of the Big Central’s top teams.

How did they account for the loss of Bailey’s big numbers? By committee.

Five different players – including the quarterback, sophomore Frankie Garbolino – rushed for 100 yards or more this season.

Click below to hear Mike Cipot talk about how the Raiders continued their success in 2020:

Honorable mentions for Coach of the Year included Dan Lee of Monroe and Scotch Plains-Fanwood’s Austin Holman.

Lee’s Falcons finished 5-1, by far the school’s best season since he took over for Chris Beagan in 2016. Monroe had gone a combined 8-30 in Lee’s first four seasons. Their only loss came by 7 at home to Old Bridge in Week One, and they won their remaining games by a combined 184-60, never allowing more than 18 points the rest of the way.

Holman led the Raiders to a 5-2 season, following a 4-6 mark in his first year at SPF in 2019. He took over a program that had gone a combined 9-50 under Mark Ciccotelli and Jon Stack from 2013-18. They scored three blowout wins, beating Princeton, JFK and Colonia by a combined 136-29.