When two excellent teams meet, no matter their skill players, often it’s line play that determines who will come out on top.
And while Friday night’s “Big Central Game of the Week” presented by Bellamy & Son Paving was by no means a blowout, No. 8 Sayreville controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, and came out of Kenny Armwood Stadium with a 42-24 win over the No. 7 Chiefs.
The win Keeps Sayreville undefeated (6-0), while Piscataway drops to 4-2.
Shaun Jackson, the star runningback for the Bombers, was the biggest beneficiary of the superb line play by his teammates. He scored four times, the first coming after Landon Pernell scored from 20 yards out on the game’s opening drive for the Chiefs, on a 74-yard touchdown catch that tied the game at seven.
Then, he gave Sayreville its first lead, with a 15-yard run on the next possession. He also scored from a yard out just 2:12 before the half to give his team a 21-14 lead that would shrink to 21-17 after the Chiefs booted a 28-yard field goal with 25 seconds left before the break.
Jackson added a 24-yard run with 5:14 to go that sealed the deal, while Sherwin Appiah scored two touchdowns, on runs of six yards and one.
Jackson unofficially finished the night with 192 yards on 24 carries – putting him over 1,000 on the season – as the Bombers scored on all six full possessions. The only times they didn’t score was when they got the ball at the end of the first half with 20 seconds to play, and took a knee to head into the locker room, and in victory formation at the end of the game.
Sayreville also used multiple looks on offense that kept the Chiefs’ defense on their toes. They would direct snap to Jackson and Appiah, and it was a challenge just to keep up
The Bombers visit Franklin next week, while Piscataway hosts East Brunswick.
The win evened the all-time series at 20 wins each. No one has won back-to-back games in the series since the Chiefs won four straight from 2016 to 2019.
Click below for postgame reaction from head coach Mark Poore and runningbacks Sherwin Appiah and Shaun Jackson, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen!