Football: Friday night reflections

One out of two ain't bad.

It's not so hot, either.

I knew exactly what was going to happen in the Pennsauken-Millville game.

I didn't have a clue about the Holy Spirit-Camden Catholic game.

Holy Spirit finally looked like the team that entered the season in the No. 1 spot. Donta Pollock ran for 265 yards and 3 TDs. Nigel Jones ran for 189 yards and 4 TDs. Dan Mastromatteo and Ethan Gambale were terrific at LB. Tom Worthington kicked a 39 FG on the last play of the half.

Most impressive was the work of that OL. To me, that really was the key to the 51-7 victory. Those big guys shoved CC off the football, and got out to the second level and made things extremely difficult for CC's LB corps.

HS went with a two-tight end alignment for most of the night -- using Monmouth-bound Zach Fabel, their regular tight end, in tandem with either Mastromatteo or Gambale at the other TE spot. It worked like a charm. Or like a steamroller, actually. The Spartans controlled the game and never completed a pass. They attempted one.

I mean, they were converting 3rd-and-11 and 3rd-and-13 with running plays.

CC coach Gil Brooks was disappointed but didn't seem shocked. Brooks has been around. He coached against some big, strong, talented teams while he was at SJ Prep. He saw something similar in HS.

Brooks said he thought HS was playing as well as any team in South Jersey at the end of the season. No way to rank the Spartans as No. 1 -- St. Joe beat them 34-7 on Oct. 1 -- but they really did look great on this night at TCNJ.

Great season for CC. I really thought the Irish could stand up to HS's running game because of those linebackers, and Jarred Alwan made a couple of nice plays. But Pollock and Jones were running downhill all night.

It snowballed on CC. I was thinking it might be a low-scoring, defensive battle and that CC QB Pete Galiano might be the difference because of his dual-threat ability.

But CC never got anything going. HS was just too big and strong and those RBs just ran too hard and too well.

But as wrong as I was about the game at TCNJ, I had a good read on the game at Rowan.

I figured it would be a track meet on that fast track on a dry night. I figured Millville would move the ball, with RB Alquann Jones and QB Shaq Lee, and score some points.

But I also saw Pennsauken enough this season to figure there was no way that Millville was going to shut down the Indians. QB Manny Cortez and WR Amar Williams made play after play after play, all season long.

Fitting that it ended with a 55-34 win that included 5 TD passes by the record-setting Cortez (plus 3 rushing TDs) and 4 TD catches for Williams.

Cortez set the SJ record for TD passes in a season and tied the state record with 43. And he had zero in the first game, that long ago overtime win over Shawnee. Williams finished one of the best seasons I've ever seen by a WR with 18 TD catches.

Pennsauken put together a terrific season, winning the program's first title since 1986. This was a talented, dedicated senior class that stayed focused all season and met every challenge -- even the loss to CC was a great game that could have gone either way.

But the true measure of the Indians' season was how they react to that loss -- with six straight wins, with sensational football down the stretch.

Pennsauken was at its best when it mattered most. That was especially true on Friday night. And of the enigma that was Holy Spirit, too.

Pennsauken and Holy Spirit both put on a show about 70 miles apart. One team ran to glory. The other passed its way there.

Those teams on Saturday have a tough act to follow.

-- Phil Anastasia