Delsea (9-0) begins the most important stretch of its season tomorrow night when Bridgeton visits John Oberg Field for a Group 2 semifinal game. Six days later, the Crusaders will take a short bus ride north on Fries Mill Road to play the No. 2 team in South Jersey, Williamstown, with the Tri-County Conference Royal title on the line on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in a showdown that can't help but live up to the hype. Finally, the Crusaders hope their last game of the year will be the Group 2 final against either West Deptford or Haddonfield, but that's far enough down the road not to think about at this juncture.

"No way," linebacker Mike Straubmuller said. "We have work to do before that. That's December, we have to finish November."

The senior has been a key component of Delsea's defense this season with an emphasis on the passing game. Straubmuller, who duly notes he has four interceptions and one reception as a tight end on the offensive side of the ball, understood long ago that with the way Delsea scores on offense, many teams are forced to abandon the run early in games.

That said, the talkative Straubmuller - once he gets going, defensive teammates such as Kyle Jones, Dennis Hardy and Jon Hickman usually just shake their heads and smile - has done as much with his play as with his mouth this year. Straubmuller is tied for the team lead in tackles with fellow linebacker Austin Medley with 41 for an average of 5.1 a game. It should be noted that teams have at times ran away from Medley, putting more pressure on Straubmuller, who has been more than up to the task.

"Last year, we could get teams in third-and-long and they'd beat us with the pass," Straubmuller said. "This year, we really worked on fundamentals and shutting everything down. The pass was what we worked on every day since last year.

"We didn't go anywhere this summer because we wanted to work on our defense. With all these new spread teams coming at us, we wanted to make sure we were ready. This is a defense in which everyone has to be on the same page. We work as a team, and because we worked together all summer, we've been able to accomplish a lot as a team this year."

The learning process

All of that wasn't the point for Woodrow Wilson, which has just four seniors on its roster and gained plenty of respect because the young Tigers refused to give up. This was no more evident than at the quarterback position, where sophomore Aaron Spencer took a beating for much of the night but kept pushing his teammates to keep working and trying to score.

Too often the final score is all that anyone remembers but one thing is for sure, despite the lopsided final, Spencer and his team gained the respect of Delsea on this night.

"Two years," Spencer said. "No, I want to come back next year and [be where they are now]. We have one game left [against city rival Camden] this year and we're ready to get working on next year."

In the loss, Spencer, who showcased his ability to run out of necessity, threw a pair of touchdown passes that demonstrated both a strong and accurate arm. Given some seasoning, he and his teammates are confident they can improve on their 4-5 mark next season.

"We have a young team and we knew coming into this game it was going to be a test," Wilson head coach Chris Cowley said. "We challenged them to play to the end and I think Aaron epitomizes that. We have a lot to look forward to over the next few seasons and he's a big reason for that."

Once is enough

"We're not looking past them at all," said Glassboro head coach Herb Neilio, whose Bulldogs will play Paulsboro at 7 p.m. in a Group 1 semifinal game. "That's a program that has won more state titles than anyone. They're well coached and are always gifted athletically. We're taking nothing for granted."

While Paulsboro is impossible to ignore, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which the Bulldogs aren't frothing at the mouth for a potential rematch with Penns Grove for the Group 1 title in December. Penns Grove ended a 30-game win streak by Glassboro earlier this year, 14-12 at the Red Devils home. The Red Devils, who will play a tough Woodbury team on Saturday, caught some breaks in that contest, but Neilio knows better than to worry about minutiae such as that.

"We won 30 or so straight and we had more than our share of breaks to do that," Neilio said. "I think we can learn from that game. I think that every game we play the rest of this year the key will be the same. The team that makes the least amount of mistakes will win. We just have to do it on the field."

Extra time