Football: Manville continues epic turnaround, blanks South Hunterdon

MANVILLE - The Manville High School football team has spent much of the first four weeks of the 2016 season erasing history. Friday night, the Mustangs blotted another long losing streak from its ledger and did so in convincing fashion.

Two weeks after notching its first conference victory in 20 tries, and a week after winning a season’s second game for the first time six years, Manville got another monkey off its back, topping South Hunterdon for the first time in 10 years, with a 40-0 victory at Ned Panfile Stadium.

“There’s a handful of kids that are proving they know how to win, and there’s a handful of kids that are proving that they’re going to do what it takes to learn how to win,” said Manville coach Pat Gorbatuk, whose team improves to 3-1, its best start since it went 6-0 to begin the 2006 campaign. “Little by little we keep taking it step by step by step until we get to a whole new level.”

FOOTBALL: Friday night's CN-area football roundup

Senior running back T.J. Caswell added to his fantastic early-season number, adding four more touchdowns and 148 rushing yards. Senior Jameer Campbell added 49 yards on the ground and another 42 yards receiving, while quarterback Shane Demeter tossed a pair of touchdown passes, one to Dylan Whitenight and another to Shane Freuler.

The Manville line did another fantastic job Friday night, as the unit, featuring junior center Jake Bentz, junior Michael Tyle and senior captain Troy Oset at guard, junior tackles Alex Gonzalez and Hunter Norz, and junior tight ends Matt Rogalski and Dylan Whitenight helped the backs to 273 yards on just 37 attempts.

“Our line stepped up so much,” said Caswell, who has now reached the end zone 12 times in four games. “They’ve advanced a lot. We’ve got stronger, better and faster kids and they’ve really stepped up.”

“We think we’re talented, we know we have a strong offensive line and we have some skill kids that we haven’t had in the past,” said Gorbatuk, whose defense held South Hunterdon to just 108 total yards Friday. “We feel we’re a very complete team when healthy, and being that this winning thing is so new to us, it’s safe to say we are better with every rep in practice. We are better from week to week to week.”

RELATED: Special teams shine, as Hillsborough tops Phillipsburg

The victory Friday as even more impressive when compared to the previous nine meetings with South Hunterdon, considering the Eagles had shut the Mustangs out in five straight games until Manville got a touchdown in a lopsided loss last year. It’s just another thing to add to the list of highlights in what’s been quite the about-face for this program, one that hasn’t had a winning record since 2006, the last and only time in program history the Mustangs have reached the playoffs.

Still, Manville isn’t letting it get to its heads, nor is it putting the proverbial cart before the horse, especially with Belvidere looming next weekend.

“It’s funny, because we’re a team that’s not used to winning, but it feels very natural,” Gorbatuk said. “It doesn’t feel different, I don’t think it feels different to anybody. It’s a feeling that you start getting and you get laser-beam focused on things, in the past, that maybe our kids didn’t think were important, they’re starting to realize that maybe they are important.”

“It just boosts our confidence,” Caswell said. “I don’t really feel different. It’s still the same team, the same guys, the same color on me. We’ve got to go one day at a time. We’ve got to win tomorrow before we win (next) Friday.”

Simeon Pincus can be reached atSPincus@GannettNJ.com. Follow him on Twitter @SimeonPincus and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SimeonPincusCN