MAPLEWOOD/SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The Livingston High School football team defeated Columbia High School 42-0 on Friday, Oct. 10, at Underhill Sports Complex’s Lynn V. Profeta Field in Maplewood.
It’s week six on the New Jersey High School Football calendar and it’s starting to look like playoffs, as the scramble for positions are on high alert. With just three games remaining until the Oct. 24 cutoff date, teams around the state were looking to solidify their playoff hopes, while others were looking to play spoiler. Some teams have suffered early eliminations due to disqualifications handed down by the state. But there’s one team that continues to raise eyebrows each week, while there’s another looking to lock their spot.
It was an all-important game for both Livingston and Columbia. The Columbia Cougars played host to a surging Livingston Lancers, both needing a win to cement their chances of a higher seeding in the North Jersey, Group 5 playoff seeding. For Columbia, it was more important to win for them as they haven’t won a playoff game in the history of the program, while Livingston hasn’t been to the playoffs for nearly a decade.
When Columbia deferred the game’s opening kickoff, Livingston decided to open the floodgates right then and there. Taking the ball from their 29-yard line, the Lancers fed the ball to their all-purpose player, junior wide receiver/running back Abel Paul, who immediately punched his time clock in two plays. The first was a 3-yard rushing set-up, where he made the Columbia defense, led by senior DL Hans Archer and Zamire Lindsey, think they had a shot at keeping him bottled up to set the tone of the game.
But Paul decided to bounce to his right on a power counter play, which gave him clear daylight up the Livingston sideline. He capped the two-play, 71-yard drive that made everyone stop what they were doing to take notice of his 68-yard gallop for the opening 7-0 lead with 10:50 left in the first quarter.
“We thought we were going to score on the first play from scrimmage,” said Livingston head coach Bob Breschard after the game. “It was a play we’ve worked on for most of the summer and early this season. We saw that they were not protecting the outside, so we ran it again and it got us the result we wanted. Livingston was only getting started, as they pounced on the ensuing onside kick that the unsuspecting Cougars were not prepared for.
Setting up shop on Columbia’s 43-yard-line, Lancers junior QB Troy Naylor gave the ball to Paul, who attempted a round-trip house call, but got dragged down out of bounds after a 22 yard gain. Five plays later, Naylor found senior tight end Alex Gilatis for a 9-yard pitch-and-catch for the next score, which he called his own number for the two-point conversion to take a 15-0 lead with 8:29 still remaining in the first quarter.
The Cougars couldn’t get out of the gate to chase the Lancers’ offense. Led by senior RB Jasiel Phair and the senior tandem QB of Tenzin Armacost and Eli Angelou, the Cougars were seemingly on their way to a response of some type, when Phair rattled off a 33-yard gain before Armacost fumbled the next snap, which the Lancers’ defense took a happy pounce to recover the ball.
Both teams traded a punt to close out the first quarter.
Livingston, still feeling the momentum in their favor, took advantage of two short-field situations and scoried on each one. The first was from the Columbia 29-yard line to start the second quarter, where Naylor and Paul did the heavy lifting, pushing the ball down to the Columbia 1-yard line and setting up senior fullbackJeremy Lovenheim for the 1-yard scoot with 9:36 remaining in the half and the expanding 22-0 lead. Naylor, Paul and the Lancers were not slightly done. In fact, Paul made a second house call from 22 yards out, capping a four-play, 34-yard march with 4:59 remaining in the half to keep the ever-growing lead at 29-0 by halftime. The second half would see an invigorated Columbia attack, but they could not get the game back, as they were met with force on every play. Livington would basically pitch its tent on the Columbia side of the field, where Paul and senior wide receiver Christian Giordano ran completely unchecked by the Cougars for the remainder of the third quarter.
Paul ran for 3, 9 and 19 yards in the four-play, 42-yard drive, while Giordano rumbled the remaining 13 yards for the 36-0 lead with 8:21 left in the third quarter.
Columbia coughed up an interception that might have saved them from a shutout, when senior Angelou found junior WR Joel Hector for a deep 50-yard connection. Angelou found senior WR Carlo Magyartis for a 13-yard strike, but Lancers senior DB Asa Paul had other designs on the game’s outcome. He snagged the ball away from the Cougars sophomore WR Daeron Freeman, who didn’t see the ball sailing past him. Asa Paul preserved the lead for the Lancers, while his brother finished the game with 16 carries for 202 yards and two touchdowns.
Senior RB Aden Sun picked up where Paul left off and with the help of Giordano, the Lancers took a final slow-sustained drive to bleed the clock. The drive went 80 yards in 14 plays to close out the game.
“We knew that this game was supposed to give us an advantage over them,” said Columbia head coach Lys Rubens Blanc. “You have to give it to them; they came to play. Now we have to hope for some help and at least a split with Union City and Bayonne.”
Prior to the game, the Cougars were ranked 15th on the North Jersey Group 5 United Power Rankings. With the loss they have dropped to 19th out of a field of 24 teams. The top 16 teams will earn playoff berths.
Livingston will hold strong at the 7th slot with a tough, surging Bloomfield squad and a Montclair squad still searching for its first win of the season. “We needed this game just as much as they did,” said Breschard, who explained that with this game, his squad would at least get a home game in the tournament had the playoffs started this week. “We just have to take it one week at a time and then shoot for our goal, which is the state championship.”
Photos Courtesy of Kerry E. Porter
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