HOPEWELL TWP. – A veteran defense did all it could to keep the Hopewell Valley football team in a position to win, but too much sputtering on offense proved costly.
Led by junior running back Kingston Pinnock, 5th-seeded Neptune took a 21-11 victory over 4th-seeded Hopewell in a NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III first-round playoff game Friday night.
Pinnock, a 5-9, 230-pound battering ram, rushed for 103 yards and put the game out of reach with a TD run with 1:25 remaining. By that time Hopewell (7-3) had lost two of its top defensive linemen – Carter Horvath and Ethan Barker – to injury in the fourth quarter.
“He’s a load, and at that point in the game he’s gonna fall forward and gain three, four yards,” Hopewell coach Dave Caldwell said.
The Bulldogs defense had done all it could up to then. After allowing Neptune to go 72 yards on the opening drive – capped by Caleb Brown’s 6-yard TD toss to Michael MacLennan – the Bulldogs did not allow another score until 4:43 remained in the third quarter.
But Neptune’s defense was equally solid, if not more so. If it wasn’t good for a few plays, it got good.
“We’d get a big gain, get eight yards and all of a sudden we get stopped for second-and-eight, third-and-five,” Caldwell said. “We couldn’t establish a run game or a pass game on a consistent basis. We couldn’t put six positive plays together. We’d get two or three then go backwards. We thought we moved the ball but not well enough to finish drives.”
Senior quarterback Grayson Vlasac, who was solid in his first year as a starter, echoed his coach’s thoughts.
“They’re a really well-coached team,” Vlasac said. “They bring the energy. They have a lot of physical guys up front. Credit to them, but we just couldn’t get things going tonight.
“Our offense would get going. We were doing the right things on drives; we just couldn’t finish. It’s all about finishing drives. You march the ball 80 yards down the field and if you can’t finish the drive it means nothing.”
Vlasac was referring to early in the second quarter, although he embellished the distance a bit. Hopewell moved from its 45 to the Neptune 19 before three straight incompletions stalled the drive.
Late in the half the Bulldogs went from their 32 to the 19 but had to settle for Josh Reinhardt’s 35-yard field goal that cut through a fierce cross wind.
HoVal had a chance to build on the momentum when Neptune fumbled the ensuing squib quick and the Bulldogs went from the 40 to the 20, but Reinhardt’s 36-yard attempt was blocked – the fourth blocked kick for the Fliers this year.
The halftime score was 7-3 as Hopewell forced Neptune to turn the ball over on downs twice after drives that went to the Bulldogs 25 and 32.
“Our boys hung tough,” Caldwell said. “Their quarterback is great and he didn’t have any real big plays; they just moved the ball a little more consistently than us.”
Hopewell received the second half kickoff but went three-and-out. Neptune responded with a 65-yard scoring march in which it converted three fourth-down plays, including an 11-yard TD pass to Daaron Lynch on fourth-and-7 to make it 14-3.
“We knew we had to play better in the second half,” Vlasac said. “We thought we were the better team. We knew we had to tools to go out there and beat them. We were confident coming out after halftime we just couldn’t put the pieces together tonight.”
They put them together once, in response to Neptune’s touchdown. Led by Lucas Hemmer, the Dogs went 65 yards on four plays, with Hemmer rushing for 31 yards on one carry and a 24-yard TD on another. A conversion throw from Vlasac to Mike Whitlock made it 14-11 late in the third quarter but the Bulldogs would gain just 11 yards on its final two series.
Neptune rushed for 178 yards and threw for 60, while the Bulldogs rushed for 127 and threw for 67.
“I thought it was a great high school football game,” Caldwell said. “I thought they had a great game plan. They established the line of scrimmage with their quickness and physicality and we found it difficult to generate consistent offense.
“The way they ran the ball reminded me a little of us during the season where they’d control the line of scrimmage, eat some clock, generate a bunch of first downs and finish some drives. We weren’t able to do that.”
But they were able to generate another winning season that included a Capitol Division title after losing eight offensive starters from last year’s sectional finalist.
“I’m so proud of the guys,” Vlasac said. “A lot of people stepped up. A lot of underclassmen, a lot of new seniors that never started before stepped up. We had high hopes before the season and even though we didn’t get there I’m glad I got to spend it with my teammates.”
Caldwell, the program’s only coach since it started back up in the early 2000s, knew his team would survive personnel losses, and thinks it will do so again.
“Every year every high school team graduates tons of players,” he said. “We had eight new starters on offense. The same thing happens next year and we will back again next year.
“It’s just a standard that has been set by the seniors two, three, four, five years ago. It’s an expectation. When you have that expectation, kids are gonna work hard because they respect the program and the seniors that came before them. We’re gonna be OK.”
Neptune (9-1) 7 0 7 7 – 21
Hopewell Valley (7-3) 0 3 8 0 – 11
First Quarter
N-MacLennan 6 pass from Brown (Waldmann kick)
Second Quarter
HV-Reinhardt 35 FG
Third Quarter
N-Lynch 11 pass from Brown (Waldmann kick)
HV-Hemmer 24 run (Whitlock pass from Vlasac)
Fourth Quarter
N-Pinnock 3 run (Waldmann kick)
