Old Bridge football holds off late Monroe rally to get win

What a bleak start it was on Friday night for the Old Bridge Knights.

Needing to win this game to stay in the Big Central-National Gold division race, the Knights muffed and lost the opening kickoff, threw an interception on their second play from scrimmage, and then fumbled the ball away on their fourth play from scrimmage. That was all in the first quarter.

But understanding the importance of this game and in front of a raucous home crowd, folding wasn’t an option.

A messy start turned into a wall-to-wall battle between two sides both looking to bounce back, but it was the Knights (4-3) in the end who persevered, defeating the Monroe Falcons (2-4) 28-21.

Driving with less than a minute to go, Monroe had an opportunity to tie the game inside the Old Bridge 20-yard line but stalled offensively and couldn’t get any separation downfield. They turned it over on downs with 45 seconds left and the Knights knelt to kill the clock the rest of the way.

“There was no doubt in our mind that we couldn’t move the ball even after the turnovers,” Old Bridge coach Matt Donaghue said. “We were moving the ball before we turned it over and just had to correct them through simple ball security. We were stopping ourselves early on but came back from it right away.”

With less than fives minutes to go and tied at 21-21, Old Bridge was facing a third-and-15 and looked to be dead in their own end when senior quarterback Brady Cavallaro was sacked on the prior play. But Cavallaro threw a rope over the middle to senior receiver Thomas McAleavey to keep the drive going and Old Bridge’s chance to take the lead back. Two plays later, senior running back Dan Hennessey ran in the game winning score and put the Knights up for good.

Hennessey (two touchdowns) never went down without a fight and made the Falcons defense have to tackle him with four or five defenders all night. After an unceremonious first quarter, Cavallaro kept plays going with his legs and scrambled for big gains as well as connecting with the likes of McAleavey and junior receiver Pietro Gambino (touchdown) vertically downfield.

“For the most part with our offense anyone can go off at any point you just don’t know who it’s going to be,” Donaghue said. “Some days it’s going to be Hennessey going for 200 yards, or Steven Davies taking plays up the sidelines. We can do so many different things and we have receivers who run great routes. It depends on how teams are playing against us and that’s how we gameplan.”

This specific win was of utmost importance to Old Bridge, who will likely need to win out for the rest of the regular season in order to put themselves in decent playoff position.

“It was incredibly important to win tonight,” Donoghue said. “I told the guys that we have to be 1-0 to be 3-0 to have a chance at the playoffs. We came out really slow with two turnovers but we battled and fought. They always fight and claw themselves back in. Just a typical late season high school football game.”

What it means

Even with Old Bridge winning on Friday night the National Gold division standings are the same as they were coming into the week. Division leader South Brunswick lost, although out of division, but still holds the head-to-head over second place Piscataway, who defeated East Brunswick on Friday night.

Old Bridge previously defeated South Brunswick but also lost to Piscataway so the Knights are in third and will need some help in the final two weeks of the regular season to be crowned division champs.

Key plays

Old Bridge’s first two turnovers of the game cost them as the Falcons capitalized on both to take a 14-0 lead after one quarter of play.

After a series of messy plays that included an Old Bridge 95-yard kickoff return touchdown called back for a block in the back, an Old Bridge fumble, and finally a Monroe interception all in the span of 33 seconds, the Knights got themselves back into the game after Cavallaro and Gambino connected on a four-yard back-corner fade for a touchdown to cut the score to 14-7.

Hennessey scored his first touchdown of the night on a 46-yard run right up the middle to tie the game at 14-14, which was how it’d remain at halftime.

The first quarter bad luck for Old Bridge parlayed into third quarter bad luck for Monroe, who fumbled the opening second half kickoff and two plays later saw Cavallaro score on a 29-yard run. Three plays into the second half and the Knights held their first lead at 21-14.

Senior quarterback Riley Piscitelli and senior receiver Aidan Lane would hook up for a 65-yard catch and score with 7:31 left to tie the game at 21-21 and put Monroe in a position with momentum down the stretch, but it’d prove to not be enough as Hennessey would score the game winner just a few minutes later.

Game balls

When it counted the most on Friday night the Old Bridge defense showed up and shut down Monroe in clutch situations.

Up 21-14 midway through the third quarter Monroe senior receiver Chris Chaves returned a punt to inside the Old Bridge 10-yard line. Yet the Old Bridge defense stuffed the run on four consecutive plays, including a fourth-and-one, and forced a turnover on downs.

After giving up the 65-yard touchdown to Lane, the Knights went on to bottle up the downfield passing space when the Falcons had the opportunity to tie the game up and potentially send it to overtime. On the final two plays from scrimmage for Monroe, Piscitelli had to move out the pocket and try to complete tough throws on the run and to no avail.

Monroe as well could’ve led by more at the end of the first quarter with how often the Old Bridge offense turned the ball over, but the defensive unit routinely put the offense in positions to succeed, and ultimately win, on Friday night.

What’s next

Old Bridge will host New Brunswick next Friday night while Monroe will travel to play Plainfield next Saturday afternoon.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Old Bridge NJ football holds off late rally from Monroe