Bergen Catholic explodes in second half, downs St. Augustine by Greg Mattura of The Record
ORADELL – Bergen Catholic apparently needed a cold dose of reality, and it came in the form of St. Augustine’s game-tying touchdown early in the third quarter.
The Crusaders responded like you’ve rarely – if ever – seen in a New Jersey high school football playoff game.
Top-seeded Bergen Catholic scored five consecutive touchdowns to turn a tie game and potential upset of painful proportions into a high-powered rout and 56-21 victory on Saturday in a Non-Public Group 4 opener.
“We didn’t really play as we should have, and we really woke ourselves up,” said senior defensive lineman Javontae Jean-Baptiste. “And we figured, we’re fighting for our season right here. And we came out and we played our butts off.”
To put Bergen Catholic’s awakening in perspective, consider this: Rarely does a game tied in the third quarter conclude with a mandatory running clock that is triggered after a team builds a 35-point lead.
Bergen Catholic (8-2) scored 35 consecutive points within a 16-minute span. It began with junior running back Rahmir Johnson scoring on a 6-yard run with 7:59 left in the third and ended with sophomore backup quarterback Andrew Boel scoring on a 9-yard run and junior Michael Kearney kicking his eighth consecutive extra point.
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St. Augustine (5-5) was starting to look like a nominee for “Best No. 8 Seed in New Jersey Football History” after tying the score, 21-21, with 10:04 left in the third. Hermits junior quarterback Chris Allen threw a 24-yard TD pass to senior receiver Xavier File and senior Shamere Collins ran for the two-point conversion on a reverse.
“We made a couple of errors in the beginning of the game that really cost us some drives,” said Crusaders senior quarterback Johnny Langan, who ran for three scores, “But once we started getting rolling, and our defense started getting stops, there was no stopping us.”
“Unfortunately it shouldn’t be that way,” Bergen Catholic coach Nunzio Campanile said. “It should be that we should have started the game playing hard and fast from the beginning. Honestly, I don’t know that we played with the intensity level that we needed to, and we’re going to have to be a lot better next time.”
Turning point: Bergen Catholic immediately answered St. Augustine’s game-tying TD drive with a go-ahead scoring drive. The Crusaders moved 88 yards in seven plays, never facing a third-down situation, and capping it with Johnson’s 6-yard TD run.
Key play: The Crusaders’ defense arguably made it in that 35-point barrage. Sophomore defensive back Jordan Morant returned an interception 27 yards for a score to provide a 35-21 lead with 6:17 left in the third. Morant’s pickoff near the St. Augustine bench was made possible by a deflection by junior Anthony Corbin.
Record books: Langan set the BC record for career rushing yards and TD by a quarterback. He carried 16 times for 211 yards to bring his career total to 1,320. His three rushing scores gives him a record 18. Meanwhile, senior receiver Dylan Classi had four receptions to raise his career total to 84, tying the record held by J.J. Kulcsar (2013).
Injury update: Crusaders junior running back Josh McKenzie is expected to return for the semifinals after sitting out against St. Augustine after sustaining a helmet-to-helmet hit in last weekend’s regular-season win over Seton Hall Prep. “He’s going through the return-to-play protocol,” Campanile said. “He should be good to go by next week. He looks great, he feels great, so we look forward to getting him back out there.”
Quotable: “I thought we played as well as we’ve played in a long time on offense,” Campanile said. “We played really well. I thought we picked it up in the second half on defense. I thought we did a good job finishing.”