In the days prior to last Friday’s showdown with Don Bosco Prep for the NJSIAA Non-Public Group 4 championship and for the overall bragging rights in the state of New Jersey – and beyond – St. Peter’s Prep head coach Rich Hansen expressed concerns about his team’s inability to stop the run and the opposition’s size and quickness along the line of scrimmage.
It didn’t take long for Hansen to realize that those concerns were indeed becoming a reality.
Don Bosco must have watched tapes of the Marauders’ last two games prior to the showdown in Giants Stadium to the fullest, because when the game began, the Ironmen had one thing in mind – run the ball right at the Marauders, just like Seton Hall Prep and Hoboken had done in the previous two weeks.
So Don Bosco ran the ball and ran the ball, over and over. The game plan was obvious. Don Bosco wasn’t going to throw the ball until the Marauders showed any propensity to be able to stop the run.
As it turned out, the Marauders never did.
Guy Germinario, who admitted didn’t have a great game against the Marauders in St. Peter’s Prep’s 22-15 victory a year ago in the Meadowlands for the same state title, was a bigger, stronger, more determined back this time around. His first carry went for six yards, the second for eight, the third for seven. It was evident from the outset that he was a totally different player from a year ago.
When Germinario broke loose for a 42-yard run in the closing seconds of the first quarter, you could sense that this was going to be a long day for the Marauders. Germinario’s run set up DBP’s first score of the game, a 15-yard pass from Matt Simms to Alex DiSanzo (whose parents ironically were born and raised in the Jersey City Heights), and the Ironmen were in business to get the revenge that they waited exactly 364 days to attain.
On Prep’s next possession after the first touchdown, Hansen’s second fear became obvious, thanks to the performance of a defensive end who simply had the best day any defensive end has enjoyed in that building all year – and that includes names like Strahan and Umenyiora.
Bosco’s brilliant defensive end Justin Trattou started his barrage on making life miserable for the Marauders, sacking Prep’s quarterback Shawn Boysen on consecutive plays, once forcing a fumble that, luckily for the Prep, trickled out of bounds.
By the end of the day, the Notre Dame-bound Trattou had nine tackles, four sacks, three hurries and a forced fumble. Every time you turned around, No. 71 was in the Prep backfield. It was that dominant of a performance.
So with the Ironmen running the ball with ease and with Trattou and his teammates totally controlling the play along the line, Hansen’s pre-game fears became a hard, cold reality.
Still, the Marauders were only trailing 7-0, when they got the ball with 7:32 remaining in the first half, after a 63-yard punt by Matt Sciancalapore (another kid who has Hudson County roots, with family based in Hoboken) on their own 9-yard line.
Here was the Marauders’ chance to get back into the game. They had the ability to strike at any second with the always-dangerous Will Hill calling the signals. Sure enough, Hill broke loose on the fifth play of the possession for what appeared to be the game-tying 75-yard touchdown, showing the brilliance that everyone in the crowd of more than 16,000 was waiting for.
However, by the time Hill crossed the goal line for what he thought was the touchdown that catapulted the Marauders right back into it, he couldn’t bear to turn around to see the penalty flag that was left on the turf some 50 yards back. Holding, against the Marauders. Bring it back.
Things looked even bleaker when Trattou got to Boysen once again, this time for an 11-yard loss. The Marauders were trying to utilize a no-huddle offense, calling the signals at the line, but there was massive confusion getting the plays in from coach to quarterback. It’s supposed to be designed as a quick play, quick hit offense, but it was stagnant and ineffective. Not to mention, Hansen had to burn two time outs in order to get plays in on time before getting called for delay of game – something the Marauders were already flagged with earlier in the contest.
“I don’t know what was going on,” Hansen said later. “With the crowd noise, I guess they couldn’t hear the plays being sent in. It really didn’t work the way we wanted it to.”
But there still was hope. Hill connected with Joe Valenti on two straight passes of 18 and 14 yards, then another pass to Mike Lang for 16 yards, getting down to the DBP 15-yard line.
There was only one problem. Too much time had run off the clock. The confused Marauders and the seemingly befuddled coach didn’t utilize the time properly and allowed all but five seconds to expire. It left time for one play.
Hill went to the end zone, looking for Lang, but the pass was broken up by DiSanzo, who had a brilliant game.
Don Bosco had the lead at halftime and the momentum. Keeping the Marauders out of the end zone on that final play of the first half was gigantic. It was about to get even bigger.
The Ironmen took the opening kickoff of the second half and marched right down the field, with Germinario (18 carries, 125 yards) doing most of the damage, collecting 49 yards on five carries. Freshman Tony Jones scored the touchdown, a 2-yard run, that made the score, 14-0.
After the Marauders gained one first down, on a 13-yard pass from Hill to Valenti (who was probably Prep’s lone bright spot of the night, corralling six passes for 107 yards), the Marauders punted the ball back to the Ironmen, who were poised to put the game away.
Simms, the youngest son of Giants Super Bowl MVP Phil Simms, connected with Jones on a 56-yard screen pass that set up Dillon Romaine’s 22-yard touchdown that pushed the lead to 21-0 with 1:59 left in the third quarter. The wheels were coming off the wheelbarrow.
It got worse in a hurry. Hill threw an ill-advised pass that was intercepted by DiSanzo and he returned it 25 yards for another touchdown. It was now turning into a massacre.
As the fourth quarter wound down and Don Bosco tacked on two more touchdowns, the scene at Giants Stadium became almost surreal. With the swirling wind and people from Bergen County tearing up the free game programs to use as impromptu confetti, the field at Giants Stadium best resembled a scene after a bomb hits an office building. Sure enough, it felt like a bomb had hit the Marauders, its fans and followers.
No one in their wildest dreams could have fathomed that the Marauders would get totally blown out of the building, eventually losing 41-0. After all, the highly regarded Marauders hadn’t been shut out in a game in seven years. The last team to do it? None other than Don Bosco Prep in the 1999 state playoffs.
It was like witnessing an execution. You certainly didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry?” That wouldn’t be enough consolation. Silence was probably the best thing, looking at the faces on the Prep sideline.
In this reporter’s corner, it was not only a Hudson County team taking the beating, but it was also his high school alma mater, a place on Grand and Warren that he still holds near and dear to his heart. Losing was one thing. This was devastation. It really was hard to watch and tougher to swallow. The 23-game winning streak went out the window. So did the hope of a second straight state title, something the Prep had never done.
When it was said and done, Don Bosco rushed for 234 yards and four touchdowns. The Ironmen’s defensive performance not only shut down the state’s best player in Hill (three interceptions passing, only 39 yards rushing), but it kept the Marauders off the scoreboard – something thought to be unthinkable.
And Simms, who threw 38 passes in last year’s defeat and was intercepted a total of four times, threw only eight passes this time, completing six, for 156 yards and only one uneventful interception.
So after losing two straight state title games, the youngest Simms got his redemption. But his actions after the final gun sounded left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths.
After taking the final snap, going to one knee, then pointing toward the sky, for some reason, Simms went over to the Prep sideline. And instead of extending a hand in congratulatory fashion, he ran right past and behind the Prep players and started making gestures to the Prep fans in the stands.
There was a report that Simms took the ball and threw it in the direction of coach Hansen, but after viewing the video of the incident, courtesy of NJ.com, that did not happen. But Simms is clearly shown going right past the stunned Marauder players to taunt the Prep fans.
“Their fan section has been giving me a lot of stuff over the past couple of years,” Simms told NJ.com videographer John Munson. “I just wanted to put my fist up and say I won for the first time in my life. That’s about it, and I have nothing else to say about it.”
Except for one slight problem. Simms’ ridiculous and unsportsmanlike behavior almost caused a full-scale riot, because the obviously upset Marauders and their staff didn’t appreciate the gesture. When the two teams started to meet at midfield, some words were passed and the gestures escalated. It appeared as if it was going to build into a physical confrontation. Luckily, it didn’t. But it was ugly. There was no ceremonious handshake between the two teams. It was not the way you wanted the evening to end.
This was perhaps the worst display of sportsmanship ever witnessed in some 25 years of sports writing. Simms had no right to go to the opposing sideline, running right past the players he just disgraced. A true champion would have stuck out his hand, said, “Nice game,” and went back to his sidelines to celebrate. You don’t go taunt the opposition’s sidelines. It’s beyond ridiculous. It’s downright moronic.
About a half hour afterwards, Simms’ older brother, Chris, the injured quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, tried to go into the Prep locker room to apologize for his brother’s actions, but Hansen and his team wanted no such apology. The damage was done.
Quite honestly, it will be the way Matt Simms’ high school career is remembered, as someone who couldn’t handle prosperity with class, as someone who was sheltered from the media and from adversity because of his last name, as someone who tasted harsh defeat more than he enjoyed victory.
And from this reporter’s standpoint, good riddance. The entire family can now go away and leave New Jersey high school football alone. The father stood as someone who told his kids who they could and couldn’t talk to. The brother played everyone like a fiddle seven years ago when he leaked word that he first was going to Penn State, announced on national television he was going to Tennessee and ended up going to Texas.
Now, the little one acts like a complete fool in front of 16,000 fans on the same field where his father once graced. To the Simms family, see ya. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out to Louisville or Franklin Lakes or wherever.
And to those who were sticking up for Matt Simms’ actions, by saying that “you don’t know the pressure the kid has been under,” that’s a load. He didn’t have to pick up the football at his father’s urging. He didn’t have to worry about being like his better older brother. He could have backed off all of it.
But Matt Simms chose to be a quarterback like Daddy and big brother and chose to wear the bulls’ eye on his back. And he handles the pressure by flipping off the opposing fans? Gee, that’s all warm and fuzzy.
I personally know someone who had to handle the pressure that comes from a famous family, someone who had an older brother who was a better athlete, who had a father who was a larger-than-life figure.
And I never remember Danny Hurley ever flipping off the opposing fans, when they taunted, “Bobby’s better, Bobby’s better.” Nope. Danny just played at St. Anthony and Seton Hall, kept his bottled-up emotions to himself and is now the highly successful coach at St. Benedict’s Prep.
That’s how you handle pressure. Maybe the Simms family can learn a lesson from the Hurley family.
And there will be another day where the Marauders reign supreme. The hunger already burns inside Hansen. The school’s best-ever football player returns next year. So does a host of other talented performers. Sure, this one hurts and this one was humiliating, only enhanced by the idiotic actions by the winners, but mark the words. The sting of the loss will go away and the Marauders will be back. Count on it.