December 2, 2006
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Bosco answers all the questions

Saturday, December 2, 2006

By Jim McConville
NJS.com Staff Writer

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Don Bosco Prep's Alex DeSanzo going in for the lone score of the first half, but the Ironmen blew the game open after the break in a 41-0 rout of defending champion St. Peter's Prep in the Non-Public North A state final on Friday night at Giants Stadium.

EAST RUTHERFORD -- Take that!

You could almost hear that coming from every member of the Don Bosco football team. The Ironmen had been on a mission ever since the final whistle of last year’s 22-15 loss to St. Peter’s Prep in the Non-Public Group 4 championship game.

Their entire season was geared to Friday night, the opportunity to exact revenge as well as place themselves among the elite Ironmen football teams. They knew full well that a loss would cast them as underachievers, so a strong effort was tantamount.

What Bosco could not have expected was the overwhelming dominance of its defense against a Marauder team that was supposed to give them fits with speedy and athletic players.

Matt Simms' final high school game will be remebered as the one in which he won a state title on the same field that his father called home.

Instead, it was Bosco whose talent rose well above the rest. Led by an inspiring performance from Justin Trattou and some big plays by Alex DeSanzo, the Ironmen laid claim to being the No. 1 team in the state with a resounding 41-0 blasting of St. Peter’s before a crowd approaching 12,000 at Giants Stadium.

“Our kids played great. That might have been the best defensive effort I’ve ever seen in New Jersey,” DB head coach Greg Toal asserted afterwards. “They have a lot of great athletes on that team, and for us to shut them down is so, so impressive.”

The victory meant that the Bosco seniors leave on the highest of notes after a season in which only a win in the 12th game would make it a successful campaign. Their legacy was on the line, and they played like it.

There was no bigger monkey on the back of anyone that the one quarterback Matt Simms carried for the better part of three seasons, and when the load was finally lifted, it was done so by a team effort that was led by undoubtedly the best player on the field, Trattou.

Don Bosco senior Justion Trattou was unblockable as he finished with four sacks among his nine tackles.

He had garnered 3 ½ sacks in the season-opening win over St. Joseph of Pennsylvania, but the next 10 games saw him quietly be the efficient player that Notre Dame looks forward to having the next four years.

When the lights were turned up on the big stage, Trattou put on a huge show, coming up with 9 tackles that included four sacks. He was all but unblockable, and numerous times it looked as though he was being held despite no flag being thrown.

“He was a man possessed,” Toal said of his senior leader. “He has so much character, and he was our fire. He’s still hurting from last year, and there was no way he was walking out of here like last year.”

“It all begins with the way we practice,” Trattou said. “Last year, we lost and they took a shot at my knee. I was coming in here and playing as hard as I could. I used everything I had, my speed, my strength, I was going to push through them.”

Simms was a pedestrian 6 of 8 passing for 118 yards (including a 49-yarder to Orry Michael on his last high school pass just before the fifth score) as the Ironmen went the ground route with a two-fold intent – to keep the chains moving and to keep the ball away from the Marauder offense and Will Hill.

St. Peter's QB Will Hill found few cracks in the Bosco defense.

“We thought we were better than they were up front,” Toal said, “and we just kept running at them. We figured we’d prevail after a while, and in the second half we wore them down.”

The running of Guy Germinario in the first half (9 carries, 74 yards, 15-104 overall) had Bosco moving in the first quarter, but its opening drive was stopped when Simms came up about three inches short of the goal line on a fourth down.

After a punt, Germinario broke off a 42-yard scamper to the SPP 18-yard line. On third and 7 on the first play of the second quarter, Simms went to DeSanzo for a 15-yard touchdown pass. Brian Hanly hit the first of five successful extra point kicks.

“We’ve been setting up that play for two or three weeks,” DeSanzo said of the out and go pattern that they ran for the first time all season. “Once the defender jumped, I just turned it up.”

Hill had a scrambling 75-yard touchdown run called back for an illegal block that would have potentially tied the game in the second quarter, but that was the only time he got free all game. He had 40 yards rushing on 6 carries and caught three passes for zero yards (he also had 9 tackles).

Guy Germinario helped Don Bosco Prep establish the running game right from the start.

“I’ve never seen our team more determined to get a victory,” said Bosco’s Ike Garrow, who had 9 tackles from his linebacker spot. “We came in here fired up and we wanted to shut them out. We never expected this. We thought it would be a dogfight, but we played our butts off and we did the job.”

DeSanzo made another big play on the final snap of the first half. With Peters sitting on the Bosco 17, Hill tried to hit Joe Valenti on a crossing pattern in the end zone. DeSanzo came across and batted it down to send DB off with a slim 7-0 advantage.

The next score would be a huge one, and it was the Ironmen getting it off the second half kickoff. From the Bosco 37, it was a Germinario run for 11, a Tony Jones sweep for 16 and a Simms-to-DeSanzo pass for 17. That set up a 2-yard scoring run by the freshman Jones (6 runs, 50 yards).

After a punt by St. Peter’s (11-1), a Valenti sack of Simms had DB facing a third and 14, but Simms tossed a screen pass to Jones, and he turned it into a 28-yard catch and run for a first down.

Freshman Tony Jones capped Bosco's first drive of the second half with a 2-yard score that broke the game open.

Three plays later, Dillon Romaine (11-51) went 22 yards off right tackle for a touchdown, and that score let almost all of the air out of the St. Peter’s balloon. That was compounded two plays later as DeSanzo intercepted a Hill pass and returned it 24 yards for his second TD and a 28-0 lead with 52 seconds left in the third quarter.

From there, it was all about the final score. Simms’ lone mistake was an interception by Nyshier Oliver that he ran back 8 yards to the Bosco 16, but Trattou sacked Hill on first down and the Marauders turned it over on downs.

Jones added a 21-yard touchdown run and Garrow closed the scoring with a 2-yard run with 3:26 left as the Ironmen began their celebration with a Gatortade dousing of Toal right after Garrow scored.

“I don’t even know how to explain it,” Simms said of the emotions immediately following the game. “All the time spent preparing, time away from the family, the commitment to this game, it’s unexplainable right now. We just had to prove one last time that we were the team that everyone’s talking about.”

“Did we answer all the questions,” Toal asked afterwards.

Sure did, and then some.

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