Nottingham Head-coach Jon Adams and Steinert Head-coach Dan Caruso hug at the start of overtime after regulation ended at a 3-3 tie. Photo by Michael A. Sabo
By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
Oct. 27: It didn’t seem fair, in a way.
Steinert puts together a tremendous effort to bring night football back to its school for the first time since 1975, but the team from the other end of Klockner Road walks away with the victory.
Nottingham’s 10-3 overtime win makes the Spartans 0-2 in home night games, as they lost their first one to St. Anthony’s (now Trenton Catholic Academy) over four decades ago. Norman Luck, a lineman on that team now living in Florida, only remembered that, “St Anthony’s wore brown shirts, the lights were bad and you could not tell who had the ball when we were on defense.”
Needless to say, this game will be remembered a little more fondly. The Spartans won’t want to remember the result, which hurt their chances for a home playoff game. But the atmosphere was outstanding all night in front of 3,500 fans and the school should be proud.
Both teams have played night games before, but never within the township boundaires.
“It was really different,” Nottingham’s Bryce Fremgen said. “This is one of the most fun games I ever played in my whole life. Baseball, football, anything. All of Hamilton was out here.”
It was put together by the hard work of Principal Nate Webber, Athletic Director Steve Gazdek and Steinert head coach Dan Caruso, who got assistance from the Nottingham folks as well.
It was electric from the start.
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First, Steinert freshman Brandon Gonzalez and 7-year-old Paige Stines were introduced on an evening when donations were being taken for their valiant fights against cancer. Then the senior cheerleaders and players were introduced on Senior Night. The Nottingham band played, and the choirs of both schools sang the National Anthem.
At halftime, Trentonian sportswriter George O’Gorman was introduced to a warm ovation as he presented the award named after him to Steinert for being the top overall athletic program in Hamilton last year. The Spartan band followed with their performance and then a second half morphed into a nail-biting overtime.
“Kudos to Steinert,” Nottingham coach Jon “Big Dawg” Adams said. “It was an outstanding night. Great crowd, overtime game. What else can you ask for?”
Actually, if you’re Adams, you’re asking for a lot more of these.
“I’ve said it before, build it and they will come,” Adams said. “Look at the crowd tonight. The atmosphere, two great teams, Senior Night for the Spartans, a lot of electricity, a lot of great things. The fans were great, the cheerleaders.”
And it was an orderly crowd as well, as there did not seem to be any issues other than parking that the extra contingent of Hamilton police had to deal with.
“It’s what we need here in Hamilton Township,” Adams said. “I probably won’t be around too much longer to see it but I’m hoping sometime, somebody wakes up and builds a night football facility for these kids because they deserve it.
“You see the kind of effort they put forth, I know the (Hamilton) Hornets will put forth the same effort. We got a lot of great kids in this community and they deserve a chance to play under the lights.”
Especially if every night turns out to be like this.
