By Wayne Witkowski
Neal Flogel wound up being an all-purpose player more than he expected in all three phases of the game for the New Egypt High School football team in its 28-20 victory over Palmyra High School.
Along with catching a pass for a touchdown and setting up another scoring strike with his long interception runback, Flogel was pressed into action for place-kicking and kicking off when veteran kicker Mario Reed sustained an injury in the first quarter while running back a punt. Reed is expected to miss the next month of the season.
“It’s unfortunate when he went down and right away, I knew I had to kick,” Flogel said. “I kick in practice with him so I did what I had to do.”
It was a good test against a team that reached the NJSIAA Central Jersey, Group I championship last season, and now New Egypt will put its 3-0 record on the line against Robbinsville High School, which is 1-2 but a much larger Group III school. New Egypt only once before started off 4-0, in 2008. Palmyra fell to 1-2.
“We know we haven’t won our toughest battles but at 3-0, we can hold our heads up,” Flogel said. “But we can’t take it for granted. We have to keep winning.”
A victory over Robbinsville would give New Egypt a good number of power points for state playoff contention.
“We just have to play good team defense and rally to the football,” first-year coach Steve Fence said. “We had three turnovers in the first half against Palmyra and had only one turnover in our previous [two] games and during the preseason, so we have to minimize our turnovers and mistakes.”
Quarterback Kyle Frimel led the way with 135 yards passing and 125 yards rushing.
Freshman quarterback Joe Smythe completed 10 of 13 passes for 146 yards and ran for the other two for Palmyra, which scored first on his 8-yard run in the first quarter. The conversion kick was no good.
Frimel hooked up with Flogel on a 26-yard scoring play in the second quarter. Flogel caught the ball on the 3-yard line and ran it in. With Reed out, Jake Kear ran in the two-point conversion on a trick play for an 8-6 Warriors lead.
Smythe then put Palmyra back ahead on the ensuing drive with a 17-yard touchdown run late in the first half, and Dan Kay’s kick put Palmyra ahead, 13-8.
New Egypt took the second half kickoff and ran over six minutes off the clock on a 13-play drive that ended with a 3-yard run by Jordan Bendick, who also continued his solid punting.
Fence felt his team seized momentum from the start of the second half and never let go.
“We controlled the second half,” Fence said, as Frimel rushed for 99 of his yards after halftime. “We played much better in the second half. I think we wore them out rotating guys into the lineup.”
Frimel then ran 14 yards for a score, but the extra-point kick was no good, as New Egypt clung to a 20-13 lead. Offensive linemen Julian Viera and Matt Soles blocked well throughout the game.
That’s when Flogel intercepted a pass and ran it back about 50 yards to the 2-yard line, where Frimel threw a 2-yard scoring play action pass to Kear on a corner route in the back of the end zone with three minutes left. Bendick ran in the two-point conversion to make it 28-13.
“Everybody contributed. [It was] a team victory,” Fence said.
It’s the kind of effort Fence said his team will need against Robbinsville.
