With running games throttled, quarterbacks excel in Stars win over Hamilton

By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
Nov. 6: Hamilton West’s rushing defense was awesome. That being the case, one must consider Nottingham’s run defense to be otherworldly.

The Hornets held the Northstars’ vaunted ground attack to a mere 30 yards on Saturday, which should be enough to beat Nottingham. As good as that stat looked, the Stars held
West to a staggering minus-52 yards on the ground in taking a 23-21 victory in the Backyard Brawl Saturday.

Kadier Nelson chases down Hezekiah Patterson

Kadier Nelson chases down Hezekiah Patterson

“I think the 50 front really did it for us,” said linebacker Kier Jenkins, who was everywhere in playing his best game of the year. “They couldn’t block our nose guard. I have to give all my credit to Kadier Nelson, he really did a great job.”

They barely blocked Jenkins either, as coach Jon “Big Dawg” Adams gave credit to everybody.

“Our two tackles (Nelson and Devion Stokes), I hope people realize how good they are. And we got Ridge Pierre back and he had a nice game,” Adams said. ““Kier Jenkins had a monster game. He’s finally healthy. At the beginning of the season he was battling bronchitis and really struggling physically and it showed in his film.

“You watch him play the last couple weeks and he’s playing lights out football. He’s a big-time player. We expect him to get a lot of looks and do a lot of great things.”

 

With both teams’ running games shut down, they were forced to the air. Hamilton’s Hezekiah Patterson was 23-for-33 for 354 yards, while Nottingham’s Deonte West only had two completions. But what completions they were, as one was an 83-yard touchdown pass to Jeffrey Davis and the other was a 44-yard TD bomb to Eric Mitchell.

Patterson’s strong effort – which set a school record for completions in a game and was five yards short of the record for yards in a game — was thwarted by five turnovers and 95 yards in penalties suffered by Hamilton. Nottingham had 80 yards in flags as the officials put their mark on the game as well.

Holding a 3-0 lead on Alex Cabrera’s 20-yard field goal, Nottingham struck suddenly when Davis broke down the middle and caught the delivery from West in stride. It showed the quarterback’s maturity, as he refrained from trying to run for yardage.

Deonte West rolls out and looks downfield to pass. Photo by Michael A. Sabo

Deonte West rolls out and looks downfield to pass. Photo by Michael A. Sabo

“That was a sprint-out,” West said. “As I was sprinting out, I saw the hole and thought ‘Should I cut up?’ I started to cut up and as I was running I saw the receiver downfield wide open and I hoped the ball got there. It got there and he finished it the rest of the way.”

Dionte Nicholson made the lead 16-0 on a 5-yard run but Mark Bethea made his presence felt for Hamilton after being injured most of the year. In a 78-yard drive with under three minutes left in the half, Bethea had a 26-yard reception and capped the march with a 21-yard TD catch.

Hamilton got within 16-14 in the third quarter when Reidgee Dimanche blocked a punt out of the endzone and Dionny Azcona caught a 43-yard touchdown pass.

Dionny Azcona shakes off defenders after catching a pass. Photo by Michael A. Sabo.

Dionny Azcona shakes off defenders after catching a pass. Photo by Michael A. Sabo.

But West struck again on the next Stars possession. On third-and-8, Eric Mitchell got a half step on Christian Charles but only a perfect throw would work. That’s exactly what West delivered. With Charles still stuck to Mitchell, the ball went just over both players’ heads and dropped into the arms of Mitchell. It was highlight-reel stuff.

“The safety came down on the post route, so I saw Eric was one-on-one with the other corner,” West explained. “Eric’s faster than him, so why not just throw it over? I threw it over his head and he went up and caught it.”

Asked if that was a sign of his maturation, and if he would have made those throws last year, West was coached by Athletic Director Dee “The Wizard” Taylor to say that of course he would have.

Adams had a slightly different take.

“Probably not,” the coach said. “He’s getting better. We don’t do seven-on-sevens anymore. We put the rush in his face, that’s what he needed and it’s paying dividends.

“Today, he had his best game, his eyes were downfield, he’s seeing the field better, he’s seeing the receivers better. He’s not focusing on the rush, then pulling it down and running around crazy like he did in the Ewing game. He’s definitely progressing and getting better and that’s all we ask out of him. He can make plays with his legs and extend plays, but we need him to play quarterback and he did that today.”

Patterson wasn’t through, however, and he found Reidgee Dimanche with a 57-yard touchdown pass in which Dimanche caught it at the 40 and broke several tackles before sprinting to the endzone to make it 23-21.

Hamilton (5-3), which had a four-game winning streak snapped, had one last shot but Darry Felix ended it with his second interception of the game.

“At that point we’re just gonna play Northstar defense,” Jenkins said. “We weren’t keying on anybody specifically.”

And as they showed for much of the game, Northstar defense made the plays when necessary.

About The Author


Rich Fisher has been around the Hamilton Township sports scene for so long that he actually got Rich Giallella’s autograph when Giallella was still a player! Proud product of Hamilton YMCA and Lou Gehrig baseball leagues and former teammate of Jim Maher on a very average Barton & Cooney rec basketball team, Fish graduated from Nottingham Junior High and Steinert High school and has covered township sports since 1980. His goal in life is to convince Maria Prato that Jersey tomatoes are at least 100 times better than California tomatoes.