As former Rumson resident Bruce Springsteen once wrote, “there’s magic in the night.”
On a magnificent mid-October evening there was magic, an atmosphere like the Shore hasn’t seen at a high school football game in at least two years, and non-stop, ferocious, bruise-causing, give me three Tylenol hitting, No. 9 Red Bank Catholic reminded the Shore Conference a little defense is played at its end of Ridge Road, too.
A crowd of an estimated 2,500 came, saw and watched Red Bank Catholic conquer Rumson-Fair Haven, 21-14, in a game that lived up to, and surpassed, its buildup at Borden Stadium in Rumson Friday night.
“This was the kind of game where everyone emptied the tank in all facets,” said Red Bank Catholic head coach Mike Lange.
“I don’t think any of the kids on either team will have trouble sleeping tonight,” added Rumson-Fair Haven head coach Jerry Schulte.
Red Bank Catholic (7-0), which will ascend to the No. 1 ranking in the Shore Conference next week, survived two, fourth-quarter fumbles and held off its rival with defense that was even better than Rumson’s, which many believed was the best in the Shore Conference.
“All week all we heard was they (Rumson-Fair Haven) set the gold standard when it comes to defense,” said Red Bank Catholic’s Alex Bauman, who was a forced off the edge and in pursuit all night long. “People seem to have forgotten RBC plays defense, too. We came out to prove that.”
“Last time I looked we’re pretty physical and play great defense, too,” Lange said. “We hit our kids with that all week.”
The Red Bank Catholic defense forced seven punts. In the final 7:51, the RBC defense came on to get three-and-outs on consecutive possessions after its offense turned the ball over on fumbles. On Rumson-Fair Haven’s final two possessions, RBC recorded two sacks and held RFH to minus 16 yards.
“We had our chances,” Schulte said. “They’re good, what can I say? We were just inconsistent on both sides of the ball. We’d do something good and then we’d looked like it was the first day of practice.”
And the massive crowd, three and four deep around the stadium fence in places, screamed tirelessly.
“It was awesome,” said Red Bank Catholic’s Sabino Portella, who scored two touchdowns including the game winner with 51 seconds left in the third quarter. “We couldn’t hear anything. We had to use hand signals.”
“When we took the field I took a deep breath and just took it all in,” Bauman said.
The RBC defense was bolstered by the return of Torin Harmon at inside linebacker. His return put hard-hitting Rahjan Cooper on the edge. RBC played with eight players in the box much of the second half, just one safety over top, looking to stop a vaunted Rumson running game. The tactic worked, Rumson had only 29 yards rushing in the second half. At the same time, RBC dared Rumson to beat it with the pass – and it nearly did.
When Portella, who finished with 25 carries for 144 yards, scored from two yards out, capping a 10-play, 73-yard drive, Red Bank Catholic opened up a 21-7 lead with less than a minute left in the third quarter.
Forced to deviated from the run, Rumson quarterback Colin Kennedy completed three, well-thrown passes during a five-play, 83-yard drive. First, he put a down-the-field throw to Scott Venancio, who got behind the RBC defense on a post pattern, on the money for 44 yards. Then he hit Aiden Casuccio for 20 more to the RBC 20. Then, after a one-yard gain on a running play, Kennedy showed remarkable touch when he dropped-in in a 19-yard scoring pass to Casuccio, who made the catch between two RBC defenders.
From that point on, however, RBC played stonewalling defense.
After RFH recovered the first fumble, the RBC defense pushed Rumson back from the RBC 49 to the Rumson 44 and forced a punt with 5:40 left to play. After RFH recovered the second fumble, the RBC defense pushed Rumson backward from its own 45 to its own 30 where it punted again with 3:05 left.
“Honestly, we just played out basic defense,” Portella said. “We just felt like we had something to prove.”
In the first half, the burly RBC front – Liam Kehoe, Lorenzo Portella, Ashton Mejias, Vince Carpenter and Michael Coneely – blew massive holes in the touted Rumson defense.
Portella gashed Rumson for 112, first-half yards on 15 carries. He capped a marathon, 17-play, 75-yard drive with a 1-yard run.
The march was prolonged by a costly RFH penalty. The offsides call gave RBC a first down ona fourth-and-four. Another big play on the drive was a 16-yard pass over the middle from QB Alex Brown to Bauman, who wrestled the ball away from a Rumson linebacker for a first down at the RFH seven. The drive took more than eight minutes off the clock.
RBC made it 14-0 when Brown swung a pass into the flat to Cooper who then bulled his way into the end zone the TD with 2:48 left in the second quarter.
Rumson-Fair Haven responded by putting together its first successful drive of the first half. The Bulldogs went 62 yards in 11 plays. Kennedy finished off the drive when he dropped the ball, picked it up and raced to the corner for a 1-yard score. Rumson went into halftime trailing, 14-7.
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Joe Zedalis covers Shore Conference football. He can be reached at jzedalis@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Josephzedalis