Sunday,
October 6, 2013
By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer
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Jonathan Hilliman scored on a 60-yard catch and run inside the final two minutes to give St. Peter's Prep a 25-18 win at Bergen Catholic on Saturday afternoon.
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ORADELL – St. Peter’s Prep has been by far and away the best team in Hudson County for over a decade now and even more dominant in the past four years, often winning by lopsided scores against intra-county opponents. But whenever the Marauders have come against one of the Bergen County catholic school powers during those past four years, Prep has come up on the losing end. Saturday represented another opportunity for the Marauders to reverse that trend and it did not come easy on the road against a Bergen Catholic team desperate for a win just to stay in the hunt for the Non-Public Group 4 state playoffs.
After Bergen Catholic drove to tie the game with 2:23 left, it could have been a ‘here we go again’ moment on the St. Peter’s Prep sideline. With standout tailback Jonathan Hilliman on their side, the Marauders know they are always just one big play away from the end zone and showed just why in the biggest of moments.
Hilliman took a screen pass from Brandon Wimbush and was off to the races. He cutback on three occasions and juked four defenders in the process on his way to a 60-yard touchdown with 1:53 left. He then iced the game by intercepting a pass on the 30-yard line inside the final minute as St. Peter’s Prep scored its first victory over Bergen Catholic since 2009 with a hard-fought 25-18 triumph at Bergen Catholic High School.
“All I can ask for my kids is to play as hard as they can for as long as they can, and that’s exactly what they did today,” said St. Peter’s Prep head coach Rich Hansen. “We made a lot of mistakes today and paid dearly for some of them. We kept our heads up though and just grinded it out through the tough times.”
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BC quarterback Colin McGovern led his team into the end zone for the score that tied the game at 18 with 2:23 to play. |
Garrett Dickerson hauled an 18-yard touchdown catch and Corey Russo followed with a two-point conversion on the opening drive to give the Crusaders their only lead of the game, 8-0. After a 23-yard field goal by Prep’s Ryan Hernandez cut the lead to five, the Marauders hit the first big play of the game late in the second quarter. After throwing strictly short passes, Wimbush let one go down the middle of the field and Minkah Fitzpatrick was there to come down with the jumpball and take it all the way to the house for a 77-yard touchdown. Hilliman used a huge block from left tackle Dave Tolentino to easily score the two-point conversion for an 11-8 lead with 2:04 to play in the half.
“I saw the safety keep creeping up and my eyes just lit up because I knew what play we were running,” said Fitzpatrick. “Us running the ball so well definitely helped because it forced them to bring up their safeties to try and stop that. That opened up a lot of space for me and Brandon threw a great ball.”
Bergen Catholic had several chances to take the lead in those final two minutes. It started with a 57-yard kickoff return from JP Garcia that Wimbush saved from being a touchdown with a desperation tackle. The Crusaders then had three shots from inside the 9-yard line, but all three were incomplete. They had to settle for a 22-yard field goal from Travis Feather as the teams went to the locker room tied at 11.
The Marauders answered back right out of the locker room with Wimbush and Fitzpatrick hooking up again on a similar scoring play. On a third-and-5 from the BC 34, Fitzpatrick ran a skinny post up the seam and Wimbush led him right to the end zone for a touchdown and an 18-11 lead.
After twice driving the ball into Marauder territory in the third and coming away with no points, the Crusaders put together a drive late in the fourth. Senior quarterback Colin McGovern ran seven yards for a first down on a third-and-five to keep the drive going. On the next play, he called his own number again and went for 22 yards down to the Prep 2-yard line. Garcia punched it in from there and Feather knocked through the PAT to tie the game at 18 with 2:23 to play.
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Prep quarterback Brandon Wimbush threw for 279 yards and three scores. |
The momentum was on Bergen Catholic’s side, but the Marauders had come too far and were too seasoned to let one drive halt everything they had worked so hard towards for the previous 45-plus minutes.
On the eventual winning touchdown catch, the play started off rocky as Tolentino had to come to the sideline and miss a play with a helmet issue. Jose Palomino stepped right in and got a good block on Dickerson, which gave Wimbush enough to loft a pass over the defense and into the hands of Hilliman. With three blockers and a lot of green in front of him, he let his legs and his vision do the rest. He looked like he was going to get pushed out along the sideline, but cutback to stay inbounds and avoid a defender. He did so again two more times before outracing the Crusaders defense to paydirt to put Prep back in front, 25-18.
“I saw it all unfold and Brandon hit me right in stride,” said Hilliman, who is committed to play at Rutgers next year. “I like to think of myself as a leader and a player who is supposed to make big plays. That was the time to make a big play and the whole play couldn’t have worked out better. I thought about getting out of bounds for a second, but I just tried to cutback and get as many yards as I could. After the last cut, all I saw was the end zone and I wasn’t going to let anyone catch me.”
Bergen Catholic had one last chance with a third-and-10 from the Prep 45 with 30 seconds to play. Hilliman, who also plays safety, proved he could make plays on both sides of the ball. He faked covering an outside route, then cut back underneath Dickerson coming over the middle of the field to intercept a McGovern pass and essentially end the game and drop Bergen Catholic to an uncharacteristic 1-4 on the season.
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Travis Feather's 22-yard field goal tied the game at 11 at halftime. |
Hilliman rushed for 192 yards on 24 carries for St. Peter’s Prep, which is now 5-0 and currently tied with Paramus Catholic for the top spot in the Non-Public Group 4 power point standings. Armond Cox had a huge game on defense with eight tackles, three for loss, and two sacks. Fitzpatrick had only three catches, but they went for 120 yards and two touchdowns. Wimbush finished with a season-high 279 yards through the air and three touchdowns.
This sets up a battle of unbeaten teams next week when Prep travels to face Union City. A win there and it will probably mean that the Marauders and St. Joseph Regional, which was idle this week, will enter their showdown at Caven Point on October 28 unbeaten and with a No. 1 state ranking on the line. Although happy to be 5-0, Hansen knows there are a lot of mistakes that need to be cleaned up before those big games on the horizon.
“We were fortunate to get out of here with a win with the mistakes we made,” added Hansen. “It’s been a long time though since we beat one of the big Bergen County teams and it feels good to eventually get the job done. We know we have a lot of senior leadership and a lot of talent overall. But we have to work a lot harder to get better for these next two weeks. How we played today won’t win us a state championship. The heart and the effort are certainly there. Now we simply have to execute better to become a complete team.”
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