It’s almost a foregone conclusion. Although St. Peter’s Prep has reached the NJSIAA Non-Public Group 4 state championship game for the fifth time in the last six years, the Marauders have practically no chance of winning this game.
After all, the Marauders are facing the mighty Ironmen of Don Bosco Prep, the undefeated three-time defending state champions, ranked No. 2 in the entire nation. The Ironmen have merely won 22 straight games and captured 46 of their last 47 contests, dating back to 2005.
If that wasn’t enough, try the fact that DBP just hammered the Marauders, 42-9, almost exactly a month ago in a regular season contest.
So if all of these factors are playing against the team from Grand and Warren, then why even bother going to Giants Stadium to play the game? It’s like everyone has simply made Saturday a day of coronation once again for the Ironmen.
“I think the fact that they beat us last month could turn into a positive thing,” St. Peter’s Prep head coach Rich Hansen said. “We don’t care what the polls say or what people’s opinion is. It doesn’t matter come time for kickoff. We think we’re the two best programs, the two best teams in the state. We upgraded our schedule this season to get us in this position, to get better prepared to play in a state championship game. We’ve played better competition than we ever did and we’re more battle tested than any other team we’ve had. We’re ready to play. But they obviously provide us with a great challenge.”
Added Hansen, “But I don’t feel we’re going to be cannon fodder for them. We can hang with them. And the longer we do, the better chance we have.”
The Marauders also feel that they can turn the tide this time around. After all, they are the last team to defeat the Ironmen in the state of New Jersey, having knocked them off in the 2005 state final.
“We’re really excited to get another crack at these guys,” said senior linebacker Kevin Innis. “Everyone is predicting us to lose, but I think we love being the underdog. Everyone is against us. We’re out to prove everyone wrong.”
“We know what we’re facing,” fellow senior linebacker Gianni McLaughlin said. “It’s almost like the Giants against the Patriots two years ago in the Super Bowl. No one gave the Giants a chance and we all know what happened. This is exactly what we wanted. No one is giving us a shot. That always gets you motivated, when no one thinks you can do it.”
Perhaps a little bit of history is on the side of the Marauders.
In 1994, the Marauders went to Giants Stadium to face then the nation’s No. 1-ranked team, Bergen Catholic. No one – other than the Marauders themselves, coach Hansen and one very large sportswriter – gave the Marauders a snowball’s chance in hell of defeating the seemingly unbeatable Crusaders.
But the Marauders came away with the huge 26-24 upset, winning the second of the school’s three state championships and earning the national ranking in the process.
“We’re playing with confidence now,” Hansen said. “We just scored 47 and 42 points in the state playoffs against some good teams. I think we have an aggressive, positive group. We’re not jumping on the Bosco bandwagon. Everyone believes this is a blowout. We believe we can win. We’re not looking for a miracle. We need to play a good game. We can’t give up the big plays and we have to make them do things that are uncharacteristic of themselves.”
“We have to beat the odds,” Innis said. “We know it can be done.”
For Innis, it will more than likely be his last football game. He’s a standout wrestler as well, evidenced by finishing fifth in the state last year at 215 pounds. He’s also a native of Secaucus, who can see Giants Stadium from his upstairs window. He was on the field when the Marauders lost in 2007 to Bosco in the state finals, but he was also there as an eighth grader when they won in 2005.
Innis was also a grade school teammate of some of the Secaucus players vying for a state title of their own this weekend.
“I know a lot of people in Secaucus were crushed when I decided to go to Prep,” Innis said. “But I’m happy the way it worked out. I’m hoping they do well. We’re both competing for the highest title in the shadows of our hometown. It’s pretty special. We all just have to go out there and leave it on the field.”
There’s really no other option, when you’re taking on the seemingly invincible. You really have nothing else to lose, because no one expects you to win. But we all know that the biblical giant Goliath dropped to the ground against that David guy; that the United States hockey team somehow managed to beat the Soviet Union in 1980; and it’s a known fact that the 1969 Mets did win the World Series. Anything can happen, right?
“It’s why you play the game,” Hansen said.
We’ll see if it was a prudent idea to play the game after Saturday afternoon. – Jim Hague
EDITOR’S NOTE: Veteran Hudson Reporter sports columnist Jim Hague will be at Giants Stadium for both the Secaucus-Cedar Grove game and the St. Peter’s Prep-Don Bosco Prep game. Check www.hudsonreporter.com for the latest updates over the weekend and make sure to read in-depth coverage of both games in next week’s editions of The Hudson Reporter.
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.