MONMOUTH JCT. >> This time there was no dramatic second-half comeback for Trenton High’s football team.
Trailing by a touchdown at halftime, the Tornadoes found themselves outscored by 25 points in the second half and saw their season end with a 33-0 loss Friday night at unbeaten South Brunswick in semifinals of the Central Jersey Group V state playoffs.
A week ago, Trenton had come from 17 points down and rallied in the second half to win at Montgomery.
But against South Brunswick, the Tornadoes (7-4) found no offensive consistency in the second half and were hampered by injuries to key players, including 1,000-yard running back Andrew Holt and their leading receiver, Kenyon Tootle.
With the win, No. 1 seed South Brunswick moves on to play for the CJ Group V title in two weeks against Manalapan, which rolled past Hillsborough in the other semifinal Friday night.
Manalapan will play in its fifth straight Central Jersey championship game and is the defending champ.
“We didn’t have any continuity on offense,” said Trenton’s second-year coach, Tarig Holman, who for the second straight year has seen his season end with a loss to South Brunswick, where he was an assistant coach for three seasons. “They did some things to try to take away the edge from us.”
Trenton last week rallied on slashing runs off tackle to defeat Montgomery behind 233 rushing yards from Holt.
Those holes were there Friday night for the Tornadoes to take advantage of.
“Then guys started dropping like flies and we had to go to some of the younger kids,” Holman said.
Tootle went down with a hit to the helmet after a 25-yard completion in the second half that led to a brief skirmish between both teams in the middle of the field. It drew 15-yard penalties on both teams.
Dontae Strickland was the Viking who ran into Tootle trying to prevent the catch. Holt suffered an ankle sprain soon after.
“We had a lot of seniors we were counting on get injured,” Holman said. “In this game it’s always next man in, and we didn’t have the players to make up for who we lost.”
Three turnovers kept the Vikings from getting their offense rolling in the first half. They got their first points on a 20-yard pass to Strickland from Amir Johnson.
In the second half Johnson scored on a 1-yard run.
