Football: Electrifying Franklin runs away with big win over Montgomery

SOMERSET – Huge LED floodlights lit up the football field, but Franklin High School’s offensive attack brought enough electricity to light up the entire town.

With four touchdowns of 65 yards or more, the Warriors ran all over the field and ran away with a dominant and convincing 42-12 victory over Montgomery on Friday night.

It was a huge win for a program that hasn’t had much success in recent years. Coming off a 1-9 season and a 47-13 loss to Phillipsburg on opening night, the Warriors are hoping to take this win in stride.

“It’s a great start of a new legacy,” senior wide receiver Clayborne Fields III said. “We’re trying to build something here.”

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Fields opened up the scoring with 8:44 left in the first quarter when he caught a 10-yard pass from senior quarterback Antonio Scott and turned up field and raced down the sidelines for a 66-yard touchdown. Fields also made an incredible tightrope catch along the sidelines of the end zone, tapping his toes for a 10-yard touchdown five minutes later.

Fellow senior wide receiver Tykey Reinberry was impressed, but felt he could one-up his teammate. Reinberry followed Fields with dizzying and electric 65-yard and 67-yard catch and runs to extend the Warriors’ lead to 28-6 by halftime. Reinberry then took the opening kickoff of the second half 85 yards to the house for his third highlight reel touchdown of the game.

Fields and Reinberry like to compete with each other over who can make the most spectacular play in either practice or a game. There was no clear winner on Friday as both receivers made multiple plays worthy of a spot on Sports Center’s Top 10.

“We’re always competing, that’s my boy,” Reinberry said. “Every time in practice we’re fighting and competing because we always want to be better than each other. That’s how we do.”

There’s been some dreary and dark days for Franklin football in recent years, but Friday offered a small ray of light provided by the meteoric offense. Under first-year head coach John Paczkowski, a new dawn might be arriving for Warrior football.

Paczkowski pointed out the countless banners adorning the gymnasium commemorating championships won in years past to his team before the game. He began counting all the banners, but stopped when he got to 50. His team had gotten the message.

“I found out about the history of Franklin, and what I told them before the game was to look around, we were in the gym, and look how many banners there are,” Paczkowski said. “They have to know and believe that Franklin is a championship caliber team, but they have to start believing just as teams did in the past.”

On the surface it was an early-season blowout, but it was clear how much the win meant to the entire team, a program that’s been on the opposite side of blowouts like this more often than not recently.

“It’s a blessing,” Reinberry said. “I know we got blown out by Philipsburg, but we came out and practiced hard seven days a week, and we showed it on the scoreboard. I’m just proud of my brothers.”

Staff Writer Daniel LoGiudice can be reached at dlogiudice@gannettnj.com. Follow him on Twitter @danny_logiudice.