GMC FOOTBALL: Bishop Ahr runs to impressive victory over Metuchen

Under fourth-year head coach Joe Vigilante, the Bishop Ahr High School football team has operated out of a spread offense, but personnel and circumstances lately are dictating a change in philosophy.

“We are kind of slowly getting out of the spread and going to a more downhill running game, and we feel that it suits our athletes, so that’s really what we want to do” said Vigilante, whose team’s lone win in its first five games was a forfeit victory over Highland Park.

The athletes to whom Vigilante was referring is the backfield combination of Josh Minick and Reminiss Funderburk, who combined for 234 rushing yards in an 18-0 victory over Metuchen on Saturday that enabled the Trojans (2-4) to snap a four-game losing streak.

Minick carried 19 times for 146 yards and two touchdowns including a brilliant 36-yard run on which he made a Houdini-like escape from the grip of tacklers on his way to the end zone and a 3-yard plunge that came on his fifth consecutive carry of a scoring drive.

“He’s one of those guys that his legs never stop moving,” Vigilante said. “In practice we’ve been seeing it for three years. We’ve been wanting to feature him for a while now and he hasn’t disappointed.”

Minick and Funderburk, who carried 14 times for 88 yards, benefited from the improved play of an offensive line that has had to overcome graduation and attrition.

“We graduated six guys that we rotated on the offensive line last year and a lot of the guys we looked at this year to be rotating, because of injuries, have become two-way starters,” Vigilante said. “For them to finally come together is great. I couldn’t be more proud of them because they are a very hard-working bunch.”

While the running game was putting points on the board, the defense, led by linebacker Luke Vizzoni, was keeping points off it as Metuchen was limited to 76 total yards from scrimmage.

“As injured as we are, he’s one of the guys, thankfully, that has stayed healthy,” Vigilante said of Vizzoni, who is averaging 12 tackles per game and who registered three sacks on Saturday. “He’s going to take us as far as we will go defensively. He’s had a great year.”

Metuchen quarterback Will Hronich, who was hurried and harassed for much of the game, completed 6 of 20 passes for 46 yards and was intercepted once. With Metuchen’s offensive line experiencing woes similar to that of Bishop Ahr, Hronich essentially created a moving pocket for himself, rolling out to both sides of the field in the second half.

Junior running back Jaden Rojas finished with 41 yards on 17 hard-fought carries for the Bulldogs (0-5), who have been limited to a total of six touchdowns this season. Metuchen played much of the second half without play-making receiver and dangerous return specialist Daniel Russell, who was sidelined with an apparent shoulder injury.

Bishop Ahr kept Metuchen in the game with penalties (7 for 85 yards) and a muffed punt that gave the Bulldogs their best field position of the day, at the Trojans’ 10-yard line with the score 12-0 midway through the third quarter.

With a chance to cut the deficit in half, Metuchen imploded with a delay of game penalty on third-and-goal from the 2. An incomplete pass and a Vizzoni sack resulted in the Bulldogs turning the ball over on downs.

Metuchen’s other best scoring opportunity came late in the second quarter on a drive Bishop Ahr aided with a roughing-the-passer penalty and a pass interference flag. The march, however, stalled at the Trojans’ 25 when the Bulldogs fell a yard short of converting a fourth-and-4.

“The first thing I said to the team (after the game) was I’m happy, not satisfied,” Vigilante said. “We played well on defense, pretty good on offense in spots, but if we think this is what it’s going to take going forward, we’ve got a lot to clean up, especially on the offensive side.”

Bishop Ahr, which attempted nine of its 12 passes in the first half when it worked out of an array of formations, was clearly content to run the ball between the tackles in the second half.

“We want to sort of give teams something to think about and line up in some funkier formations and then we don’t want to get away from what we want to do,” Vigilante said. “We want to run the ball between the tackles.”

Facing a third-and-1 from the Metuchen 37 while trying to build upon its 12-point lead early in the fourth quarter, Bishop Ahr called the number of Minick, who appeared to be stuffed at the line of scrimmage, but bounced off two would-be-tacklers and, with a tremendous second effort, gained a first down to keep alive a scoring drive.

“I know he’s not a 200-pound back, but he’s actually one of our strongest kids, especially pound-for-pound,” Vigilante said of Minick, who stands 5-foot-5 and weighs 155 pounds. “He does not stop his legs. I have no problem giving him the ball on short yardage and we rode him on that last drive. It was a great game for him, a great game by the backs and a great game by the offensive line.”

On his 36-yard touchdown run that gave Bishop Ahr a 6-0 lead late in the first quarter, Minick hit a wall of defenders and appeared to be wrapped up at the linebacker level when he inexplicably managed to slither away from the pack and race the final 26 yards for a score.

Minick had a 45-yard touchdown run nullified via a holding penalty on Bishop Ahr’s previous possession, which resulted in a punt from midfield.

On the drive following Minick’s first touchdown, Bishop Ahr scored again when Christian Cardona capped a 12-play march, bulling his way into the end zone from two yards out. Quarterback Ryan O’Leary (4 of 12 for 61 yards) connected with Rashan Ruff for a huge 19-yard completion on fourth-and-9 from the Metuchen 35 to keep the drive alive.

“I told them all week we have to get this stink off of us,” Vigilante said about Bishop Ahr’s four-game losing streak. “I thought there were a couple of games we played well enough to win in spots, but the ball didn’t break our way, or we didn’t execute a certain play. It’s never the way you want to start off a season, but for these guys to turn around and put a game plan in and execute it to a certain extent to win a game, it says a lot about a young man, it says a lot about adversity.”

Vigilante credits Bishop Ahr’s defense with keeping his team in games. The Trojans’ losses include setbacks to Point Pleasant Beach (18-0), Shore Regional (21-7) and Dunellen (26-20 OT).

“(Coordinator Ron) James and our defense have pretty much kept us in every game we’ve been in with the exception of South River (35-12 loss),” Vigilante said. Bishop Ahr has had a tradition long (before) I’ve been here and we just want to keep that going.”