November
18, 2006
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| St. Mary's senior Da'mon Merkerson caught two TD passes, the second of which stood up as the winning points as the Gaels won their first state title since 1980. |
WAYNE -- Mike Sheridan has been the head coach at St. Mary's since the small parochial school in Rutherford brought back varsity football in 1984. He is the face of the program, the driving force behind it and he has guided it through good seasons and bad. On Friday night, in the season when he needed it most, the Gaels gave back to their head coach.
In a year that saw Sheridan suffer a near catastrophic injury in a pool accident last summer than lose his sister to an illness just over one month later, St. Mary’s sent their coach off the field with a Gatorade bath, a huge smile on his face and with hugs all around after a 20-13 upset of Paterson Catholic, the defending champion and previously unbeaten top seed, in the Non-Public Group 1 state final at William Paterson University.
It was St. Mary’s first state championship since 1980 and the first of Sheridan’s head coaching career after a string of near misses.
“For him, for that guy to get his first one, no one deserves this more. He went through a lot this season with his broken neck and with his sister passing away right in the beginning of the season. He deserves this celebration,” said Matt Stone, now St. Mary’s Athletic Director but also an alum who played for Sheridan from 1988-1992. “I played on the '89-90 team that was 0-9, so all of this is because of Coach Sheridan. We kept playing because he kept coaching and to see this tonight, like I said, nobody deserves this more than him.”
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| Malcom Harris scored both touchdowns for Paterson Catholic. |
And it was not like this was supposed to be the Gaels’ year, either. They lost two regular season games and lost to Paterson Catholic in last year’s final, 27-21, one of 19 straight wins the Cougars brought into this year’s rematch.
“For years we have been playing our butts off and knocking on the door. Everyone keeps talking about how we get to the game and never win it,” said Sheridan, whose teams were 0-5 in state finals before Friday night. “This last step is the hardest step. We had to go up against St. Joseph of Hammonton teams that are phenomenal and a program like Paterson Catholic that is phenomenal so it is not easy to take that last step, but tonight we got it done.”
And to get it done, the Gaels pulled out all the stops. They scored their first touchdown on a fourth-and-3 from the PC 38 when quarterback Louis Saunders found Da'mon Merkerson on a post pattern and Merkerson beat his defender clean for the 7-0 lead with 3:07 to go in the first quarter.
Keith Silva then intercepted a pass in the end zone to thwart PC’s next drive and the Gaels went 80 yards the other way, finishing off the drive from 17 yards out when Steve Deliz broke through the middle and gave the Gaels a 14-0 lead with 4:36 to play in the first half.
The Cougars got on the board the next time they had the ball when Malcolm Harris broke off a 42-yard TD run, but PC was stopped on the two-point conversion and trailed 14-6 at the break.
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| St. Mary's QB Louis Saunders completed five passes, all to Da'mon Mrekerson. |
St. Mary’s added to its lead with 44 seconds left in the third quarter when, two plays after picking up a first down by the nose of the football on fourth-and-inches, Merkerson, who will play next season at Syracuse, made one of the best catches of the season. He held off a defender and adjusted to a ball thrown to his back shoulder, popping it up to himself with his left hand and hauling it in with his right. The extra point was blocked and St. Mary’s had to settle for a 20-6 lead.
“My father tells me, ‘You have to make those catches.’ Big time players make big time plays. That was a big time play I guess,” said Merkerson, who finished with five big time catches for 117 big time yards and two scores. “Right when we lost some games Coach Sheridan said that everything happens for a reason. We needed to taste that in our mouth so we never get that feeling again. After [we lost to] Cresskill, we had a great talk about how not everything is going to go our way, but you learn from that and you grow.”
PC made it a one score game with 9:13 to play when Harris finished of 64-yard drive, carrying the ball four straight times and covering the final 31 yards to the endzone. His nine-yard run and Glenn Coleman’s extra point got the Cougars back to within 20-13 before St. Mary’s turned to an old friend to try to close out the game.
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| Jerome Mack and Paterson Catholic saw their 19-game winning streak come to an end. |
The Gaels took over a their own 23-yard line with 9:10 remaining and ran the same play 8 times in nine snaps. It’s called 'Gael Sweep' and consists of Saunders, the quarterback, making a short pitch to Deliz before turning to the corner and becoming the lead blocker.
Only a holding call on a third and 3 after Deliz had picked up the first down short-circuited the drive, but when the Gaels gave the ball back they had eaten away 5:58 of clock and forced PC to start its final drive from its own 13 with 3:12 remaining.
“If we don’t get that holding call we are going to take that thing and punch it in the end zone and end it on the right note,” said Sheridan. “Gael sweep and we dare you to stop it.”
Paterson Catholic (9-1) did, but its last chance was not meant to be and there was a last bit of controversy. The Cougars moved into St. Mary’s territory only to see Harris’ run to the 33 called back by a holding call. With 56 seconds remaining, St. Mary’s Damon Whitlock sacked Tyquan Tucker, moving the line of scrimmage back to the PC 45 and forcing the Cougars to use a timeout.
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| Steve Deliz ran the 'Gael Sweep' 8 times on St. Mary's final offensive possession. |
While PC head coach Benjie Wimberly was in the huddle giving his team instructions, someone on the Cougars’ sideline, someone not officially a member of the coaching staff, was flagged for a 15-yard penalty for berating an official.
That made it third and 33 from PC’s own 30, and two plays later St. Mary’s (8-2) could finally call itself a state champion for the first time in 26 years and for the first time in 21 years under Sheridan.
“We were proud to take the steps that we took to rebuild it and then it was this last step. We couldn’t get past that last step and that’s real frustrating, too,” said Sheridan. “You could start looking over your shoulder and saying ‘Can’t we get this last one done.’ So this win is really the culmination of this effort of 21 years.”
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