SPF stuns Elizabeth 13-12

It was a game that was even stranger than the weather and that was saying something
because the crowd experienced everything from warm sixty-degree sunshine at the start to funnel clouds, which eventually led to bright blue skies, followed by a cold windy rain neat the finish but nobody on the Scotch Plains side left unhappy.

The Scotch Plains Fanwood football team, looking dead and buried for 43 minutes arose like the 2004 Boston Red Sox to score two touchdowns in two minutes to stun eleventh ranked Elizabeth 13-12 before a delirious and rain soaked homecoming crowd at Scotch Plains Thanksgiving Day. Elizabeth, which was ranked in the top ten in the state all year before losing their first game the previous Friday night in the state sectional semi finals at Phillipsburg, had parlayed two long first quarter running touchdowns and stout defense into what seemed like a comfortable 12-0 lead before the Raiders’ passing game came alive.

Senior quarterback Dan LaForge made his final game a memorable one by twice connecting with fellow senior Sean Smith, the second one a 65-yard hookup with 3:06 to go. After recovering a botched snap to the punter on the Elizabeth 20, LaForge hit Smith for a 20 yard touchdown in the right corner of the end zone with 5;46 to go. After the touchdown, the Raider defense stiffened and stopped Elizabeth on three straight plays to get the ball back on their own 39. On the third play after two incompletions, LaForge hit
a wide-open Smith on the left sideline and the track star ran untouched the final 45 yards.

“It’s called a rim. We bring two receivers into the middle of the field and put one on the left side,” said LaForge.

“We had run the play a few times during the game and it hadn’t been successful ,” said Smith.

“The difference this time was that the safety went into the middle of the field and left me wide open ,”.

After the touchdown Mike Baumwoll connected on the decisive extra point and for the third time hit a very effective squib kick on the muddy field that Elizabeth’s Gary Warren had trouble holding on to eventually downing the ball on the Elizabeth 15.

“We squibbed on all our kickoffs and it worked out great ,” said Ciccotelli.
“The idea was to keep the ball out of Warren’s hands on kickoffs. We had been hurt by kickoff returns this year and he was one of the best in the state so we did real well on that.”

On the following play, Elizabeth fumbled and the Raiders recovered. They were able to run out the clock by converting a fourth and three. On the next play Lakiem Lockery ran a sweep to the left side and abruptly fell down.

“It was a designed play by the coach. He told me to waste some time running wide and fall down ,” said Lockery. After LaForge took a knee on two successive plays the Raiders had achieved one of their most improbable victories and had defeated one of the state’s top football programs for a third straight year on Thanksgiving, coming on the heels of a 34-7 win in 2002, and a 6-0 triumph in 2003.

“If you look at the two teams you would have to say there was more talent on their side of the field but sometimes other things decide football games ,” said Raider Coach Steve Ciccotelli, who still had a look of disbelief ion his face.

“In all honesty they looked a little disinterested in the second half and we never lost our intensity ,” added Ciccotelli.

“Our defense was tremendous in the second half. We made some adjustments at halftime and stopped their running game ,”

The Raiders had been making a habit of second half comebacks in three of their last four games but only Linden had been successful. Like he had in losses to Union and West Morris, LaForge spread the ball around the field but mostly relied on the fleet footed Smith.

“This team never stopped playing in any game this year ,” said Ciccotelli.
“Sometimes we just ran out of time when the other team had more points but the kids never felt they were out of any game and it paid off today.”