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Roxbury High School Beats East Orange Campus in State Championship Game

Joe — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:09:14 +0000

Congratulations to the Roxbury High School football team for beating East Orange Campus earlier today at Giants Stadium! The final score was 14 – 6 in a game that had some high points and low points, but that Roxbury absolutely dominated. Check out the pictures below for a view from the packed Roxbury portion of the stands.

As for some comments on the game…

The Gaels celebrate after winning the North 1, Group IV state sectional title (Daily Record)

I was obviously glad that Roxbury won, but I had hoped for a more exciting game. Me and the other guys from the 1998 team that I was sitting with kept wondering how EOC was in the state championship game. For the bulk of the game, there wasn’t even any pressure-filled situations where EOC might overtake the Gaels and come back to win. EOC might be a good football team, but I think it’s clear that they’re not at the state championship level.

But I do think it’s necessary to say that EOC is a nice little team and they played GREAT football for about 5 minutes in the fourth quarter. That said, they had the worst special teams that I’ve ever seen on any football team, ever. Ever! If EOC’s punts made it 20 yards (including rolling after the ball landed), then that would be far. The truth is that EOC was outclassed in every possible way today. Granted, I take nothing away from those kids because I know from experience that you have to work very hard to get to the state championship game, but damn – I was absolutely shocked at how substandard their level of play was for most of the game. They weren’t really strong competition for Roxbury at all. It was shocking, really.

Photo by Joyce Bambach)" title="celebration2" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-4377" />

The Gaels celebrate (Photo by Joyce Bambach)

And the EOC coaches were calling some completely stupid plays, too. I don’t know why they kept going back to the screen pass when it only worked twice. You’d think after the third or fourth time after the play doesn’t work, that the coaches would put it away for a while. Plus, the EOC coaches made the most incredibly stupid call that I’ve ever seen in any football game in my entire life. It was at some point during the first half, EOC was a few feet away from a first down and it was the fourth down of the series. EOC can’t punt the ball and the Roxbury defense was standing tall so they didn’t want to “go for it” and risk turning the ball over on downs. So, the EOC coaches called a time out and went over a fake punt play with their players. Everybody in that entire stadium, including the 80 year old grandmother sitting in front of me, knew that EOC was going to call for a fake punt. In fact, the entire Roxbury sideline and crowd (including the grandmother) was yelling that the fake was coming, but the Roxbury team already knew as they lined up all of their players within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage.

Roxbury beats East Orange to win North 1 Group 4 NJ HS football final

And then the fake punt came and went nowhere – Roxbury got the ball back. When the entire stadium knows you’re going to go for a fake, then the surprise effect of the play tends to go away, don’t you think? Horrible play calling; definitely not state championship caliber.

Roxbury, on the other hand, did a good job on both sides of the ball as well as with their play calling. I’m sure that this wasn’t Roxbury’s best game that they’ve ever played, but the team definitely got the job done without question. The crowd was into it, the fans showed up in force, and EOC was an inferior opponent in every way. It was the perfect set up for Roxbury to bring home its second state championship in football! Congratulations to the new state champions – an accomplishment well deserved.

Final Score	First	Second	Third	Fourth	Final
East Orange (7 – 5)	0	0	0	0	6
Roxbury (11 – 1)	7	7	0	0	14
RHS – Chris Biank, 1 yard run (John Cosgrove kick) RHS – Kevin Baker, 7 yard run (Cosgrove kick) EOC – Malik Walker 45 yard pass from Justin Laroda (PAT blocked)

And an additional congratulations to my friend and former teammate from the 1998 team, Justin, who is now an assistant coach for Roxbury. If I’m not mistaken, Justin is now the only person in Roxbury history to win two state championships in football – one as a player and one as a coach. We’re proud of you, buddy.

Click the pictures below to see a larger image.

Scanning Through Search Engine Results… Weird…

Joe — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:11:50 +0000

One of the great things about running a website (or, in this case, a blog) is seeing how your readers get to your site in the first place. I know that I have a lot of family and friends that read my blog (thanks guys!), but the majority of my hits come from search engines (thanks Google, Yahoo!, and the rest!). As a webmaster, I am sometimes baffled by the search terms and phrases that bring my readers to me. In fact, I thought I’d look at the last five search phrases that brought some of you to this website.

Please note that I’m not looking at the top five most popular search terms – that would be a different entry altogether. I’m looking at the last five search phrases that landed someone on JerseySmarts.com. It should also be noted that the last five search phrases brought readers here from a Google search engine.

Searched Phrase: terry weldon new jersey 2009
Ah. Nice one. For those of you that don’t know, Terry Weldon is the former (scumbag) Mayor of Ocean Township in Monmouth County. He was also a public employee of the City of Asbury Park. This man is as corrupt as the day is long. The JerseySmarts.com page that this searcher landed on talked about how Terry Weldon was the epitome of a scumbag.

Searched Phrase: comcast customer care number
Over the summer I had some issues with Comcast’s customer care. Something wasn’t quite right when I was looking for FOX News HD on my cable box. You can read what this particular searcher found on JerseySmarts.com by clicking here.

Searched Phrase: diet books for men
It was only a few days ago that I posted my review of The Eat-Clean Diet for Men. In case you missed it (or in case you can’t scroll down the screen here…), feel free to head on over via this link. I’m probably the happiest about this particular search phrase because it shows that the content that is placed on JerseySmarts.com quickly rises up the ranks in the search engine world. You listening to that, advertisers?

Searched Phrase: guys trip to nashville
Every once in a while one of my entries has something to do with an event that someone else is planning. Clearly, this searcher was looking for ideas for a trip to Nashville for he and his buddies. Well, when he Google’d this phrase he landed on JerseySmarts.com and an entry that I uploaded over the summer reviewing my most recent trip to Nashville.

Searched Phrase: roxbury high school football
Go Gaels! A few days ago I made it very clear that, as a member of the 1998 State Championship football team from Roxbury High School, I am completely behind the current team as they prepare to play against East Orange Campus High School this weekend at Giants Stadium. I know that I speak for the entire 1998 team when I say good luck! Many of the guys will be in the stands and we want to see that state title come back home. The guys on the current team have made all of Roxbury Township proud with their excellent performance this season. We’re all pulling for them to win the big one this weekend and they can definitely do it!

Whoever searched for that term found my congratulatory post to the current team (as well as some pictures of me from when we won the state championship 11 years ago) when they landed on the page linked here.

And there you have it – the last five searched phrases that brought some of YOU to JerseySmarts.com. If you happen to be someone who landed on this page thanks to Google or another search engine, please feel free to leave a comment telling us what you were looking for and if the search engine that you used gave you the right answers.

Congratulations to Roxbury High School Football!

Joe — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:16:25 +0000

Congratulations to the Roxbury High School football team for going back to the state championship game!

Me with the 1998 State Title at Giants Stadium

12/5/2009 UPDATE: ROXBURY HIGH SCHOOL BEATS EAST ORANGE CAMPUS

Earlier tonight, the Gaels decimated Fair Lawn by 42 to 7 to earn a trip back to the state championship game for the first time in 11 years. Incidentally, the last time Roxbury was in a state championship football game, I was one of the starting defensive tackles – and we won (see the picture of me to the left holding the state trophy after we won the first on-field championship in school history). With that in mind, I was glad to read this in the Star-Ledger post-game report:

Chris Biank ran 11 times, gained 113 yards and scored four touchdowns for Roxbury (10-1), which will play East Orange Campus, its former rival from the Iron Hills Conference, for the state sectional championship in two weeks.

Roxbury will seeking its first title since it defeated Plainfield, 7-6, in the North Jersey, Section 2, Group 4 final on that day in 1998. Plainfield is the Cardinals and its helmet is a replica of Arizona team’s of the NFL.

That was a good day back in 1998. I really hope that the current team gets to experience how great of a feeling it is to win a state championship. I haven’t watched a Roxbury football game in years – since my younger brother graduated from the high school a few years ago. But I’m looking forward to finding out where and when the state championship game will be taking place and being in attendance to watch my team bring that state championship back home!

Roxbury is going to be playing against East Orange in the state championship. I have to admit, when we used to play East Orange when I was playing for Roxbury back in the late 1990’s, we pretty much shut them out each year. So the fact that East Orange is in a state championship game is somewhat surprising to me. I can’t picture them as a championship caliber football club, but then again I’m basing that opinion off of a team that I last saw in action about a decade ago – when we shut them out my senior year.

The headline in one of the local papers after we won the state title in 1998:

The headline after we won the state championship in 1998

In any event, I’m incredibly proud of the current football team and I know I speak for the rest of the guys from our 1998 team when I wish them the best of luck in the state game. We want these guys to win the state championship, break our record for wins in a season, and break the football state championship drought in Roxbury more than anyone else! Go for it guys – keep making us and the rest of Roxbury proud!