Sunday, September 14, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Tenalfy sophomore Ryan Lubatkin breaking free on the way to the game's first score, a 30 yard run on a fourth-and-1 play that gave the Tigers the lead for good on the way to a 27-6 win over Englewood.

TENAFLY -- The Tenafly football team's record over success over the past few years does not necessarily match the perception of the program. The Tigers won the BCSL-American Division championship in 2006 and earned a playoff home game before a blocked extra point cost them a win against eventual state champion Westwood. Last year Tenafly also made the state playoffs and gave top-seeded Kittatinny all it could handle in an overtime loss in the opening round.

But it seems like at the start of every season the Tigers have to prove that they are for real all over again, at least that is how some of the players feel.

“We come into every season as an underdog,” said John Sabo, Tenafly’s junior starting quarterback. “We don’t get the respect that a lot of teams do, but we always wind up making the playoffs and that is what we are shooting for again this year.”

Senior running back Mike Shin has been through the wars and he looks at the disappointments of the last two seasons as motivation.

Michael Robinson did a little bit of everything for Englewood and set up the Maroon Raiders' lone score.

“We lost to Westwood by a point and they went on to win a state championship that year. That could have been us,” said Shin. “We lost to Kittatinny up there in overtime last year and they were the No. 1 seed, so we know what it is like to play against the best teams. We like the challenge and we want to get ourselves back there.”

The road to respect was a smooth one on Saturday as Tenafly forced three turnovers on defense, had two different quarterbacks combine to complete all six of the Tigers’ pass attempts, had three runners gain over 50 yards on the ground and converted two fourth downs into scores and opened the season with a convincing 26-7 win over Englewood on Saturday afternoon in Tenafly.

“We are pretty balanced. We have some backs who can run and we are trying to distribute [the ball],” said Tenafly head coach Kurt Hommen. “They packed quite a few [defenders] inside, the put a lot of guys in the box, and our backs read it well and bounced it outside.”

The first back to do so was sophomore Ryan Lubatkin, who turned a sweep on fourth-and-1 into a 30-yard run around the left end for the game’s first score with 6:54 to play in the opening quarter. Tenafly went up 13-0 with its first drive of the second quarter, an 11-play, 77-yard march that also concluded on a crucial fourth down.

The Tigers had a first-and-goal from the Englewood 8 and used runs by three different ball carriers – Chris Yearwood, Sobo and Lubatkin – to move to within four yards of the goal line. The Tigers originally lined up for a short field goal, but after a timeout Hommen opted to keep his offense on the field and Sobo hit Shin, who was standing in the right flat just a yard or so inside the endzone.

Mike Shin scored a touchdown and had an interception for Tenafly, which is now 1-0 on the season.

To that point, Tenafly had outgained Englewood in total yards by the count of 139-4, but the Maroon Raiders have Michael Robinson, and when the ball is in his hands he is one of the most dangerous players in Bergen County. Robinson returned the ensuing kickoff 36 yards and then, lined up at quarterback in the shotgun formation, he went 44 yards on a keeper to get Englewood in scoring position.

Brandon Goodman, the Raiders’ more traditional quarterback, snuck over on fourth down from the 1 yard line and, with 1:14 to play in the first half, it looked like Englewood was back in the game, trailing by 13-6 and with the advantage of receiving the second half kickoff.

But any momentum that Englewood might have gained went out the window with a 35-yard scramble by Sobo that started out as a called pass play and evolved into a tackle-breaking scramble that pushed Tenafly deep into Raider territory. On the next play, sophomore Paul Hammersma took his first varsity snap from under center and threw his first varsity pass, a 25-yard scoring strike to Zach Kraushar, who caught the ball in stride up the right sideline.

Shin kicked the extra point, Tenafly grabbed a 20-6 lead at halftime and then dominated the second half.

Marques Horne had 35 yards rushing for Englewood.

“Paul made a great throw. That was a big situation that he was put in, especially being his first game, and put it up there where I could just run and get it. They got the kick return and the run from [Robinson], he is a great player, and we had to answer that, especially because they were going to get the ball to start the second half,” said Kraushar, a senior captain. “We have guys with experience and we stayed focused. We wanted to get off to a good start this year and we were ready for this.”

Hammersma, who was a perfect 4-for-4 passing, threw a second touchdown pass to close the scoring. Two plays after Sobo went to the sidelines with cramps, Hammersma hit Corey Gross up the right side for a 29-yard hookup that put Tenafly up 27-6 with 1:40 to go in the third quarter.

“The biggest difference today was that we made more mistakes than they did. We made mental mistakes, we made mistakes in our assignments and they tackled better than us and they blocked better than us,” said Englewood head coach Babe Mongilia. “The positive is that we did not quit and you could see that we played hard all the way through, but we have to use this week to eliminate our mistakes. We need to get better; that is the bottom line.”

Sophomore Paul Hammersma completed all four of his pass for 71 yards and two scores for Tenafly, which will play Fort Lee next week.

Tenafly’s depth allowed it to control the line of scrimmage from start to finish and it ability to rotate in fresh runners gave it an added edge. The Tigers are not the biggest group up front, but they don’t need to be, according to Shin.

“Some teams have the 250-pound lineman that just try to beat people up, but we don’t have that. We have a bunch of guys that are about 190, but they are in great shape and that really helped in the second half,” said Shin. “The running game is the basic part of any offense and we like to run play action off it, but you can’t do any of that if they don’t respect the run and our line did a great job today of opening up holes.”

Shin carried the ball 13 times for 70 yards, caught a pass for a score and had an interception on defense. Lubatkin had 57 yards and a score on seven carries, Underwood picked up 20 yards on 9 carries and Sobo, in addition to completing both of his pass attempts for 17 yards and a TD, led Tenafly in rushing with 80 yards on six carries.

Robinson did a little bit of everything for Englewood before leaving the game in the fourth quarter with what Mongilia called “an upper body injury. He carried the ball four times for 87 yards, completed 3 of 5 passes for 30 yards and caught a pass for 10 yards. Marques Horne had 35 yards rushing on 15 carries and Goodman finished 1 of 4 passing for 10 yards as Englewood was outgained 317-108 in the game.

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