Cotton, Morris Lead Barnegat To 17-14 Win Over Shore

Photos above: #26 Charlie Cotton, #89 Sean Morris, #15 Sean Madej, #56 Anthony Grimes and #32 Brian Ewan

WEST LONG BRANCH – Barnegat’s crucial matchup Friday night with Patriot Division foe Shore Regional couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start.

After going three-and-out on its first possession of the game the Bengals were forced to punt with Shore taking over at their own 48-yardline. Then, on the Blue Devils first play from scrimmage, sophomore running back Shane McLaughlin took a pitch from senior quarterback Gill Goldsmith and rumbled 52 yards for a quick 7-0 lead after Richie Pekmezian’s extra-point kick.

“Since the beginning of our season the motto has been “Bend, don’t break,” senior tight end/defensive end Sean Morris said. We’ll give up a play like that but we don’t allow that to affect us mentally and we have come back on the next play and hit harder than the play before.”

Morris and the Bengals were true to their word responding with a 13-play, 79-yard scoring drive on their ensuing possession to knot the game at seven and they went on to an impressive 17-14 win over the Blue Devils pushing their season record to 2-0.

“We’ve missed the playoffs for three straight years,” Barnegat head coach Rob Davis said. “We had a good run of five years where we made it, but you know what? Maybe it’s good for this team to not be in it for three years because they're real hungry. We have a lot of kids back from last year and great senior leadership.”

Barnegat brought back nine starters on both sides of the ball this season and there are 18 seniors on the roster that have never experienced playoff football.

The Bengals gave the ball to senior running back Charlie Cotton on thier first seven plays from scrimmage on the drive with Cotton picking up 42 yards on those seven carries and moving the ball to the Shore 37-yard line. Senior quarterback Brian Finucan then found senior tight end Sean Morris for 17 yards before another three carries and 11 yards by Cotton set up a second-and-goal from the nine-yard line.

Cotton was a workhorse Friday night rushing for 157 yards on a tireless 37 carries picking up tough yardage in critical situations all night long.

“It’s just the linemen,” Cotton said. “They did a helluva job out there. They worked their tails off out there tonight.”

A shovel pass to Morris gained another seven yards and on the next play advancing the ball to the two-yard line and senior running back/linebacker Brian Ewan finished off the drive with a two-yard burst up the middle. Aaron Osborn’s extra-point kick tied it up at 7-7.

“We put a lot into this game,” Davis said. “That’s the chance you take with a team because if you lose, how do you get the kids back up? But we went all into it, the kids bought into it and we wore (Shore) down. It’s a nice win for our program, at Shore.”

Barnegat has the depth to shuffle linemen in-and-out of the game and they try to avoid playing linemen on both sides of the ball to keep them fresh in the latter stages of the game and that paid off Friday night.

“We have a lot of kids that go one side of the ball,” Davis said. “We have 16 or 17 different starters. It’s a philosophy we have – throwing a lot of different waves of people out there.”

Shore took over at their own 26-yard line following the ensuing kickoff and drove to the Bengals 49-yard line before their drive stalled. Ewan’s eight-yard sack of Goldsmith on first down put them in a hole and a third down incompletion on third-and-8 led to a punt from the 49-yard line.

“He’s the most underrated player in the Shore Conference,” Davis said of Ewan’s contributions to the team. “He’s a four-year starter, our all-time leading tackler, he’s the heart-and-soul of our defense and a great leader.”

Matt Scott fielded the punt around the 15-yard line and picked up some nice yardage down the right sidelines to the 29-yard line. The Bengals then drove to the Shore 34 but on fourth-and-1 Blue Devils senior linebacker Michael Deusch snuffed out a Finucan pass to Caleb Schafer for a loss of one yard turning the ball over to the Blue Devils.

The Barnegat defense then bent a little but didn’t break as Morris’ nine-yard sack of Goldsmith on third-and-9 from the Bengals 19-yard line killed the drive pushing Shore back to the 28-yard line.

Shore elected to go for it on fourth-and-18 from the 28 but Goldsmith’s pass fell incomplete near the goal line and the Bengals took over at their own 28-yard line.

From there Barnegat went on a time-consuming 72-yard, 14-play scoring drive that ate up most the 5:25 left on the clock before the halftime to go up 14-7 with 23 seconds left in the half.

Morris had a fabulous leaping catch down the right sideline for 19 yards giving the Bengals a first down at the Shore 43-yard line and then on fourth-and-4 from the 37 he moved the chains again grabbing a Finucan pass over the middle for nine yards and a first down at the 28.

The 6-foot-3, 228-pound Morris finished with six catches for 68 yards and double-digit tackles with two sacks in addition to 1.5 TFL, while Finucan went 10-of-16 for 110 yards and a touchdown.

Three plays later, facing fourth-and-2 from the 20-yard line, Ewan bulled his way for two yards and first down to keep the drive alive.

Finucan then spiked the ball on first down to stop the clock before finding junior Devyn DeFilipo open on a slant over the middle for an 18-yard touchdown and the go-ahead score, 14-7.

Shore received the second-half kickoff and went nowhere thanks to two tackles for no gain by Ewan and the Blue Devils punted the ball back over to Barnegat with Andrew Verneri calling for a fair catch at the Barnegat 22-yard line.

Barnegat then drove to the 18-yard line where they had to settle for a field goal after a third-and-8 pass to an open Morris on a post near the goal line sailed over his head for an incompletion. Osborn then nailed a 35-yard field goal to give the Bengals a little breathing room at 17-7 with 4:38 left in the third quarter.

Shore took over at their own 36-yard line following the kickoff and drove to the Barnegat 25-yard line where they were knocking on the door, but Barnegat’s “Bend, don’t break” defense came through again.

On first down senior defensive back Kris Porcelli broke up a Goldsmith pass before Robert Armstrong and John Pannone combined to stop Danny Kelly for no gain on second down.

A false start penalty on Shore backed the ball up five yards setting up a third-and-15 from the 30-yard line when Morris broke through the line and chased Goldsmith down for 13-yard sack – his second of the night – forcing Shore to punt with 11:02 left in the game.

Goldsmith’s punt rolled into the end zone for a touchback and Barnegat took over at the 20-yard line but a holding penalty derailed the possession and forced a Finucan punt on fourth-and-15 from the 29.

Isaiah Chesney called for a fair catch and the Blue Devils took over at the Bengals 46-yard line with 6:49 left in the game and the score still 17-7.

On second-and-11 at the 45 Goldsmith was forced out of the pocket and scrambled for 15 yards and first down at the 30-yard line. On the next play Goldsmith found tight end Liam Rempel down the right sideline for 23 yards and a first down at the seven.

Goldsmith picked up six on a keeper and two plays later Jack McCrae pushed the pile for a score from the one-foot line to pull Shore within a field goal, 17-14, with 4:10 left in the game.

Shore then somewhat surprisingly elected to go for an onside kick which Sean Madej recovered for the Bengals giving them excellent field position at their own 47-yard line.

Barnegat then fed the ball to their “Bell Cow” on seven straight possessions and a weary Shore defense was defenseless in trying to stop Cotton. His runs of 19 and nine yards capped off his brilliant night with the latter running out the clock.

Barnegat’s defense held Shore’s potent triple-option Wing-T rushing attack to 128 yards on 31 attempts and 186 yards in total offense. Take away McLaughlin’s 52-yard TD and Shore was limited to 76 yards on 30 attempts rushing (2.5 yards/attempt).

“It comes down to just everyone doing their job,” Morris said of his team’s stellar defensive effort. “We all knew what we had to do, we executed it perfectly on time, we hit our gaps and did our assignments great.”

The Bengals rushed for 206 yards on 48 attempts. “We stuck to our running game,” Cotton said. “We trusted our big guys up front, trusted me and we got the job done.”

The win gets Barnegat a step closer in their ultimate goal of making the playoffs and don’t think the seniors don’t know it.

“It’s a huge step,” Morris said. “From morale to everything else it’s a great step towards the playoffs. Shore’s a great team so it’s a bunch of power points for us. No doubt it’s a goal for us, we talk about it all the time. We haven’t been there yet, but we’re getting there this year, that’s our goal and we got to take it one week at a time and we’ll get there with the great coaches we got and the great players we got.”

Davis would like nothing more than to see his group of seniors get their first taste of playoff football.

“I was crying to them, saying ‘This is for you guys, nobody else,’” Davis said. “You guys need to get to the playoffs to show everybody that this program is back on the way up. They played very inspired ball today, I’m really excited for them. We want to get back into the playoffs and we’re not shying away from it.”

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