A-SIDE MATCH

South Jersey ’s home pitch would again be the venue for a second week in a row come-from-behind win. The skies were clear and the wind, like always, was blowing like a wild banshee.  As the devils began their pre-game warm-ups there was a certain hue of anticipation in the air. It’s been established that Princeton and South Jersey are bitter rivals. South Jersey has won the last two meetings between the two teams and was not ready, nor willing, to give that up. Princeton came in with a vendetta, which was clear when it was discovered that on their message board, South Jersey was the hot topic.

        The opening kick was a high up and under by Bill Stom. Princeton quickly controlled the ball and the game was under way. In the first minutes Princeton did it exactly like Coach Wilson told us they would, continually feeding ball to 3 or so forwards and crashing into the South Jersey line. Princeton quickly chewed up some decent yardage and swung the ball to the backs. Princeton ’s flyhalf gave a quick grub quick which luckily found open field and they hit pay dirt, making the score 7-0. Though Princeton drew first blood it was a short lived. The Devils struck right back and used their hard pounding forward pack to break out some nice yards. After numerous phases of hard forwards pounding up the filed, scrumhalf Alex Diaz got clean ball off a well formed ruck and let the South Jersey backline take its first shot of the afternoon. The backs swung the ball wide, maintaining possession after the initial tackle. At the breakdown, Alex Diaz was again afforded good clean ball by the forwards and rolled off the weak side of the ruck and found Charlie Annerino who raced the down the line and dotted down in the far right corner for a try (his 1^st A-side try, I might add). The conversion was unsuccessful due to the fierce wind and extreme angle. The rest of the first half was a hard fought battle. South Jersey had a few opportunities to hit pay dirt but were unable to dot down. Princeton continued with their forward-minded attack for the majority of the half. At about the 27 minute mark Princeton was again knocking on the door. The Devils put up a fantastic defensive stand and held up one try. Unfortunately Princeton was persistent and once again broke the try line making the score at the end of the first half 14 -5 in favor of Princeton .

        When the Devils received the ball at the start of  second stanza it was quite evident that Princeton was facing a different team then in the first half. Not only were the Devils given specific instructions to score 21 points in the second half they also had the wind at their backs and the momentum in their favor. Like the week before, the Devils came out at the start of the second half ready to play and did exactly that. The forward pack methodically marched down the field, propelled by a series of successful “leaches”. When Stom thought the time right he called for ball and let the back line attack the fringes, systematically picking apart Princeton’s already tired and deteriorating defense. After some more crashes Stom got the backs aligned and Gerrit van der Merwe ran weak side where he made good ground and touched down for the 1^st try of the second half. Minutes later South Jersey was in scoring position again due to some good kicking and smart playing of the backs who pinned the Princeton backline deep in their own territory. The South Jersey forwards relentlessly pounded against the Princeton pack. Strong running and crashing by Tom Diaz, Phil Wright and Elliot Maruffi poked holes in the Princeton defense and led to Brent DiRomualdo hitting an exposed hole and touching down for a convincing try. With the match winding down, Princeton was finally able to get to a neutral area of the field. It seemed for the brief moment that South Jersey might let up with the pressure when all of a sudden winger Mike Rimositis raced down the sideline leaving a mess of Princeton players rolling around on the ground trying to catch their breath in his wake. As the final whistle blew it was South Jersey 23 Princeton 14.

For the second week in a row, the home crowd got to see the tenacity and determination displayed by the South Jersey Devils.  They were unwilling to concede to any opponent and posted 18 unanswered points in the second half of the match. Though it was not the 21 points requested by Coach Wilson it was close enough to prove that South Jersey, like the Spartan warriors, never back down. The Devils head into battle again this weekend as they travel to Maryland to take on Rocky Gorge.

Man of the Match was Elliot Maruffi who, despite being new to the game, was able to largely contribute to the hard hitting forward pack and proved instrumental in the win.

Trys: Charlie Annerino, Gerrit van der Merwe, Brent DiRomualdo, Mike Rimositis
Conversions: Stom 0 from 4
Penalties: Stom 1 from 1