Ed. note: Morristown’s freshman football season drew to a close earlier this month at Delbarton. It was a battle of epic proportions, according to the Boosters’ man on the scene:
By Marc Baskin, Morristown High School Football Boosters
As the dawn emerged over the idyllic hills of North Jersey, where the suburbs have suburbs, the sun began to peak through the waning, autumn tree line on a chilly All Saints Day. The rays broke through cloud and foliage illuminating a Gotham-like manor on top of a hill in the Western outskirts of Greater Morristown.
In the shadows of the cold and foreboding estate, built on wealth and privilege, where the sun had yet to be welcomed, in marched the Fighting Freshman Football Colonials of Morristown High. The setting, ripped from the pages of The Dark Knight, was made complete by the incessant rain that fell upon the Delbarton campus.
What is now the final game on the Freshman schedule – due to the next week’s cancellation of the Chatham contest – was in stark contrast to the team’s first game togethe, in the heat of the bright summer sun at Montville. For a brief moment though, it looked like the results on the gridiron might be the same as that dominating performance in the early days of September.
On the first play from scrimmage, Jhamil King attacked the Delbarton ball carrier, not to bring him down, but to expertly strip the ball. Within seconds, Justin Pierro pounced and recovered for Morristown. The chill seemed less biting, the rain less depressing. Cheers erupted from beneath the sparse jellyfish fields of umbrellas on the visitors’ side.
But on the very next play, the Morristown QB faked a hand-off, rolled out and promptly fumbled it back to the Delbies, who punched into the end zone five plays later to quickly go up 7-0.
And for the next three quarters, the adulation came forth instead from the tented gentry high on the home side of the hill, while the deluge of rain a few hundred feet to the north made the umbrellas seem like anchors and the spectators feel as if at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Before the fight in the Colonials surfaced again in the dawning moments of the fourth quarter, the scoreboard would sizzle through the gloomy sky, reading 35-0.
After getting the ball back after that first Delbarton score, the Maroon and White went into a free fall. A penalty on the first play, followed by a bad snap and sack on the next, left the team facing second down and 27 yards on the way to punting a few plays later.
Delbarton was more successful. Its QB rolled out and shrugged off a sure sack, completing a pass for first down. On 2nd-and-2 at their 16, Motown sacked the Delbie QB for a 2 yard loss followed up by a stop for no gain on the next down.
Facing a 4th down, Delbarton ran and Drew Chilson met the rock-toter with the force of a locomotive. While it seemed they were stopped on downs, the runner kept moving his feet and with a strong second effort after initial contact, he made the first down. Two plays later, the home team scored again to go up by 14.
The second quarter saw more of the same for the team from the center of town. On their first play another bad snap caused a loss of 14 yards, and soon after the Green Tide regained possession. On first down, the Delbarton QB threw a pass to the flat, across the field, to a wide open receiver who effortlessly ran 65 yards for the TD with the type of ‘Yard After Catch’ (YAC) performance more often associated with Demaryius Thomas of the Denver Broncos. Delbarton, 21-0.
After another three and out by Morristown, a Delbarton receiver took a one yard screen pass on first down for 30 yards after the catch. A few plays later, a 21 yard chuck into the end zone made it 28-0. The rest of the first half was a demonstration in contrasts indicative of the Colonials season.
Chilson took a screen pass in the backfield looking like it was going nowhere and he turned it into a 14 yard gain for a first down. That was followed up by a 7 yard sack. Later in the quarter, Chilson again ran for 15 yards in the process of breaking two strong tackles and dragging three Delbies hard across the first down line. But the possession eventually ended up in a punt.
In a foreshadowing of the steely resolve that would be seen later from the Morristown sideline, the final play of the half ended positively with a fumble recovery. With only a couple of ticks left on the clock, the team decided to put the first half behind it.
Back when these players’ parents were in high school, there was told a fable of seven siblings who rule the fabric of our universe, which have no affiliation to any one world or one religion.
The third eldest of these siblings is named Morpheus and his realm is of dreams and imagination, often referred to as “Dream.” In the heart of the “Dreaming,” is his palace and in the heart of his palace, just beyond his Throne Room, is the Library of the Dreaming.
This Library, too big to comprehend on a mortal level, contains all the books ever imagined. Like our terrestrial libraries, it is filled with Shakespeare and Marlowe and Vonnegut. But in it is nothing that we could ever have read, for it contains only the books that have been dreamed and yet to be, or never will be, written. It contains all the unfulfilled wishes of every living thing, a written record of every creature’s potential, even when unrealized.
In this Library surely are the stories of the young men under the tutelage of Coach Jacobus and Coach Hull, stories yet to unfold — of the tough, enthusiastic football Colonials from Morristown High’s Class of 2018.
This was a book that began in the days after graduation from Middle School when they arrived on Early Street every day in the summer at 7 am. Perhaps the prologue was written when most of these boys solidified their brotherhood on their way to the 8th grade State Championship game with the Morristown Wildcats town team last year.
The second half of this game against Delbarton – an opponent with an ability to attract out-of-town recruits and NFL legacies – is a chapter in the book that makes a fan of the Colonials excited to see how this story turns out over the next few years.
As the rain poured down, Morristown shored up its defense to shut out the Delbarton offense for the entire third quarter. Though the Green Wave scored again within the first minute of the fourth quarter to make it 35-0, it would be the last time anybody in a green uniform would find the green of the end zone.
On the next possession, as he has done consistently all year, King broke through a scrum at the line for a 66 yard touchdown. With Barry Sanders-like elusiveness, he ran through the entire Delbie defense evading even a touch, exhibiting an adroit combination of balance, cutting and speed. And with excellent blocking by Dan Lopez, Rob Schneider, Thomas Hussey, Chris Holick and Will Culmone, King put the first points on the board for The Colonials.
Late in the quarter, Motown recovered a Delbarton fumble and Chilson and King went on to show the great potential that Morristown High could reach in the next few years.
With less than two minutes left in the game, King went in motion before Chilson took the pigskin 40 yards down the field. On the very next play, Chilson turned a potential 5 yard loss from another bad snap into a 10 yard gain, plowing through the Delbarton defense like he was Paul Bunyan clearing the Dakota territories of lumber.
And like a good author who ends a chapter with promise and suspense making you want to see what is coming up next, King ran it in from the 16, unscathed, to put his indelible mark on this story, making the final score 35-14.
Though the end result was not what Colonials Nation wanted to see, the resolve and gritty determination of this freshman team indicates this book will be an exciting read for years to come.
MORE COVERAGE OF THE 2014 MORRISTOWN FOOTBALL SEASON
