BERNARDSVILLE – Inasmuch as there can be a turning point in a 36-point loss, it came in the Central Jersey 2 championship right after Matt Tantleff had raced 95 yards with a kickoff return to finally get Bernards High School on the board late in the third period against Manasquan.
Still down 22 points, it was a long-shot comeback, one that almost certainly hinged on recovering the onside kick, which the Mountaineers appeared to do. But once the referees waved it off for interference, Manasquan sealed the title with a seven-minute touchdown drive on its way to a 42-6 victory at Kean University on Saturday night. It was the Warriors’ 12th sectional championship and left Bernards still searching for its first.
“Oh, we had that onside kick,” said Bernards head coach Jon Simoneau, who had guided a Bernards team to a title game for the first time since 1997. “Unfortunately, they didn’t get it right in my opinion. It’s definitely not the reason we lost today, but man, that took away a lot of momentum.”
It would have at least kept Canyon Birch off the field for a while. The 5-8, 175 running back was almost equally as punishing as the man he replaced, bruiser and leading rusher Connor Morgan, who was hurt late in the first half. Birch rushed 19 times for 87 yards in the second half as the Warriors (10-2) rolled up 290 yards on the ground. In the first half, it was Morgan doing the damage with 18 carries for 128 yards. Manasquan rode those two horses on nearly two-thirds of their offensive plays and they produced three of the six touchdowns.
“We just didn’t play well, that’s the No. 1 thing,” Simoneau said. “We picked the wrong time to not play our best game. But there were reporters saying we couldn’t match their physicality and we ended up knocking out their starting tailback and knocking another starter out, so I think we matched them physically. We just made too many mistakes.”
It wasn’t just that, or course. It was also the running of Birch and Morgan, who both showed great patience behind a solid offensive line, bursting upfield when any seam appeared. Thomas Meyer also added 65 yards and a pair of scores and Jerry Maher completed all four of his passes, one for a touchdown.
For Bernards, it was a matter of just trying to get hold of the ball, and to hold on to it once it did. The Mountaineers finished with three turnovers. By the time the fourth quarter reached the 8:49 mark, the Mountaineers, remarkably, had run only one second-half offensive play and had controlled possession for just 54 seconds. Bernards finished with 12 offensive plays after intermission for 59 yards. Manasquan, meanwhile, embarked on a six-minute drive to extend a 14-point halftime lead to 21-0 on the opening series of the second half and later added that monumental 12-play, touchdown drive that, despite covering only 42 yards, ate up 7:07 and put the game away.
Murphy Injury Hampers Offense
With starting fullback Marc Murphy unable to play on offense and with Stephen Gribben’s sore elbow and shoulder significantly hampering his ability to throw and with Tantleff also ailing, Bernards simply couldn’t get much going after a promising opening drive that ended in a freaky interception. Gribben completed 5 of 20 for 63 yards, while Tantleff got only 9 touches from scrimmage (7 rushes for 32 yards; two catches for 37) and the Bernards offense managed just 182 total yards.
“We had a lot of guys hurt today,” Simoneau said, noting that lineman Bobby dePoortere was unable to lift his arm above his shoulder. “Marc Murphy showed how tough he is by just getting out here and playing the whole game on defense. But not having an (800)-yard rusher in the game who is also an incredible blocker was definitely a game-changer. That took a big part of our offense away and it ended up showing.”
Tantleff agreed.
“We did all we could to try to stay in the game,” he said. “But you can’t replace a guy like Marc. There was definitely a lot of frustration, but we tried not to let that get to us. They’re a great team.”
Still, that opening drive seemed to alert the crowd that the Mountaineers, significant underdogs coming in, might just hang right in. Tantleff had runs of seven and 19 sandwiched around Gribben’s option keep for 19, and Gribbens converted a third-and-eight with a 10-yard pass to Curt Gouldin to reach the Warrior 33. But a pass in the left flat caromed off a helmet and ended up in the arms of Tony Antonucci, who later would add a second pick in the half. It was the first of so many things that would go wrong before the long night was over.
The Warriors responded with a steady diet of Morgan, but Bernards appeared to be poised for a stop when James Pendegrist simply reached over the top of a Mountaineer defensive back to snag a third-and-10 pass for 29 yards to the 13. The coverage couldn’t have been better; Pendegrist simply made the play. Three plays later, Morgan went in from a yard.
Bernards again marched to a pair of first downs, with Gribben ripping off another big gain to convert a third-and-12 on a delayed QB draw that netted another 19. Gribben finished with 48 yards on six carries. But Antonucci stepped in front of a long halfback pass from Tantleff on fourth down for another pick. Other than a 20-yard gain on a draw play to Ethan Caldwell (5 carries, 41 yards) late in the half, Bernards did little else after those first two drives. The Warriors converted a pair of third downs on their way to an 8-play, 73-yard touchdown drive midway through the second period and extended the lead to 14-0 when Morgan broke a couple of tackles and scampered 46 yards to pay dirt.
“They did everything I expected them to do,” Simoneau said of the Warriors. “We gave up a couple of fourth-down conversions and a couple of long third-down conversions. They just simply made a few more plays than we did. The score is not indicative of what happened out there.”
Murphy, despite the injury, racked up 19 tackles, including two for loss. Tantleff added 12 stops.
One More For The Highlight Reel
After the Warriors went up 21-0 midway through the third, Tantleff hauled in a Gribbens pass for 26 yards, but fumbled and Manasquan scored on a 28-yard touchdown run to extend the lead to 28-0.
Tantleff’s rambling, zig-zag return began with a long throw across the field from Curt Gouldin, who fielded the punt at the 10. Tantleff caught it at the five started to go left, then cut it back to the right, barely eluding the grasp of a couple of Warriors inside the five. After he beat them to the right sideline, he turned on the after-burners and simply outraced everyone else for a 95-yard touchdown return that probably covered closer to 130 yards.
“It was fun, but it also kind of exhausted me,” Tantleff said. “I ran a lot on that play.”
For Simoneau, it was an exclamation mark on a career that began with great promise four years ago when he was a freshman and ended in the record books. Tantleff finished with 172 points this season, second-best in school history. His career ended with 1,586 yards rushing, 1,571 receiving and 45 touchdowns.
“That’s absolutely insane for a high school player to do that,” Simoneau said of Tantleff’s 28 touchdowns this season. “He is a very special player. I’m sure he’ll be talked about for long, long time. He’s going to have a great college career.”
Bernards, which found itself below .500 for the first time since the 2010 season when it dropped back to back games to Roselle and Johnson early in the season, bounced back to win seven of its final nine, upsetting top-seed Lincoln in the semifinals.
“I don’t think when we’re 1-2 and lost to Johnson, anybody thought we’d be standing here today having this conversation,” Simoneau said afterward. “So I can’t be too upset about this.”
