By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
Oct. 2: When Nottingham’s offense could do next to nothing in the first half against West Windsor-Plainsboro North on Saturday, it looked a lot like last year. But if it was still last year, the Northstars incredible fourth quarter would have never happened.
Nottingham’s Defense Swarms WWPN for the Sack. Photo by Mary Malone. http://www.malonephotography.exposuremanager.com
Trailing 17-6 with 12 minutes to go, Nottingham scored 29 unanswered points for a 35-17 victory. While the comeback may not have been surprising, the ferocity of it had to at least be considered startling.
According to junior quarterback Deonte West, however, it’s what should be expected in 2016.
“This is big for us,” West said. “When we’re down, we don’t give up. We’re not a team like last year who gives up when they’re losing. We knew we had to pick it up and we did.”
They did so in every way, shape and form.
The first half ended with WW-PN holding an 11-point lead that could have been a lot more. The Northern Knights just missed connecting on several big passes and committed a rash of damaging penalties.
But their offense was controlling the clock with long drives, something Nottingham prides itself on. The Stars, however, couldn’t do much of anything. They rushed for 105 yards in the half, but 40 of them came on one run by prized freshman Dionte Nicholson – who, oh by the way, rushed for 206 yards on the day.
“We were real fortunate to only be down 11 at halftime,” coach Jon “Big Dawg” Adams said. “They were moving the ball, dinking and dunking us and dominating the clock. We were on the sideline, couldn’t get a rhythm; couldn’t get anything going. Then we had the play where Deonte kind of turned to throw the ball and he tripped and fell (for an unforced sack). We had a guy open and we were stumbling around in the first half.”
Dionte Nicholson lunges forward for extra yards against WWPN. Photo by Mary Malone. http://www.malonephotography.exposuremanager.com/
Somehow, however, Nottingham kept it close and gave itself a chance to win. It just needed to establish some kind of offense.
“This is not the first time it happened to us,” West said. “It happened to us against Hopewell. We knew we couldn’t go down like that so we had to fight back.”
There were a few flashes in the first series of the second half but the Northstars still had to punt. They caught a break when WWPN muffed the punt and Darry Felix recovered at the Knights 25. The Stars rode Nicholson down to the 4, but the freshman lost a fumble on first and goal for Nottingham’s third turnover of the game.
West Windsor quickly drove to its 45 and it looked like the fumble had withered the Stars. But the defense stiffened and Nottingham (3-1) went from its 18 to WWPN’s 42 in just three plays. On the second play of the fourth quarter, Nottingham got the lift it needed when West fired over the middle to Cliff Harris, who tore the ball from the defender’s arms and went the distance.
“After the snap I saw their outside linebacker, he came in hard,” said West, who had thrown two earlier interceptions. “Our fullback picked a block
Deonte West rolls out to pass. Photo by Michael A. Sabo
up. I saw Cliff and I saw the corner shuffling. He was looking in the backfield; I wanted to throw it outside so I let it go. As I let it go, I was looking like ‘Awww man, I just threw another pick!’ And I saw him come up with it.”
Indeed, Harris would not be denied.
“I didn’t want another interception on our record,” the junior receiver said. “I had to do that. He had it in his hands so I tipped it up, it went behind me so I turned around and grabbed it.”
West followed the TD by scoring on a two-point conversion that started as a pass, and it was suddenly a three-point game with over 11 minutes remaining.
“You could see the dimension he gives us when something breaks down,” Adams said. “We’re running a pass play, the left side caves down and he runs in for the two points. That was a big play for us. We really needed it.”
And the comeback was on.
“Dionte did his thing,” Adams said. “Cliff made a HUGE catch to take the ball out of the other kid’s hands to turn the tide. That just set the tone for the second half and turned the tide in our favor and we started making more and more plays.”
Clif Harris figths for extra inches against WWPN. Photo by Mary Malone. http://www.malonephotography.exposuremanager.com
Nottingham was helped by the fact it has a roster nearly twice as large as WWPN, which had numerous players going both ways against the Stars’ mostly two-platoon system. Physically the Knights began to weary and when Nottingham rallied, it likely had a mental effect on both sides.
“I think it was a combination of wearing them down, stopping them on defense and then going down and scoring,” Adams said. “Gaining some confidence was important. We stopped them on defense, they punted, we went down and fumbled, but we got confidence running the football and we knew if we stayed with them, we could just wear them out and that’s what we did.”
On the Stars next possession after their TD, Nicholson’s 45-yard run to the Knights 30 helped set up West’s 10-yard scoring run. Alex Cabrera hit the first of three PATs and Nottingham was rolling.
WWPN’s next series ended when Patrick Gabriel Williams returned an interception 55 yards to the house to pretty much put the game away at 28-17 with 5:41 left. A sack by Sylvester Freeman thwarted West Windsor’s next possession and ended some frustration for Freeman, who came close to getting Brian Murphy two other times.
Sylvester Freeman put the pressure on WWPN quarterback. Photo by Michael A. Sabo.
“A great performance by Sylvester Freeman,” Adams said. “He got thrown in at tackle, ended up getting bumped out to end, he did a tremendous job. He played the whole second half both ways and did a great job.”
Fittingly, Nicholson concluded the scoring with a 2-yard touchdown run to cap one of the great single game performances by a freshman in Northstar history.
“This is very exciting,” the 9th-grader said. “Now we just have to think about next week.”
A noble thought, but he should at least enjoy this week for one day. In reflecting on the win, Nicholson agreed with his coach that the Stars were still in good shape at halftime.
“Yeah, I thought we were,” he said. “We’re not a team to give up.”
With two come-from-behind victories this season, that is becoming fairly obvious.
