By Wayne Witkowski
New Egypt High School quarterback Kyle Frimel felt the frustration shared by many players on his team, losing in the opening round of the NJSIAA Central Jersey, Group I playoffs to Asbury Park High School, 33-14, Nov. 14, just a week after the emotional high of claiming only its second football division title in school history.
“It has been a great season, and we definitely found out how good we can be in our division (West Jersey Football League Freedom Division),” Frimel said. “But it came down to making plays, and we failed to make plays.”
Both teams are 6-3, with New Egypt playing one more game at 10 a.m. on Thanksgiving at home against Bordentown Regional High School. Asbury Park advances in the state playoffs at top-seeded Shore Regional High School.
“That will be the last game for the seniors, so we have to just keep the energy flowing,” Frimel said. “We just have to get motivated to play one last game and to win that Thanksgiving trophy. We haven’t won it in about four years.”
Paul Reed scored three touchdowns and Cishuime Simmons ran for two more for Asbury Park, all on short runs inside the 5-yard line. After a scoreless first quarter, Simmons hit the end zone for one touchdown and Reed added another toward Asbury Park’s 14-0 lead at halftime before Reed padded the lead with another short scoring run in the third quarter.
Neal Flogel struck for New Egypt on a 59-yard touchdown reception from Frimel later in the third quarter, and Flogel kicked the extra point to make it 20-7. Simmons and Reed scored in the fourth quarter before Frimel closed the scoring with a 1-yard keeper.
“They established the run game pretty strong and won the battle of the trenches,” Flogel said when referring to an area that helped the Warriors in their previous game: a victory over Florence Township Memorial High School, 19-13, for the division title a week earlier.
It was the most points allowed by New Egypt’s defense this season. The Warriors suffered their other two losses by a combined nine points.
But it was another season where the Warriors fell short in the state playoffs, where they have only one victory in school history.
“We need to get to that level,” New Egypt coach Steve Fence said. “There was a lot of accomplishment this year. We won the West Jersey-Freedom League title, and that’s great to build off. We need an offseason of preparation and we need to get bigger, faster and stronger. They are a good team. We could not stop them up front. They were more physical than us, and we found ourselves in a hole early.”
Fence also hopes his returning players can build off a victory over Bordentown. But it will be without a strong supporting cast of graduating seniors that includes Frimel and Flogel, bruising running back Jordan Bendick and wide receiver Jake Kear leading the departures.
“The seniors were great. Thy did not have continuity with three different [head] coaches in their four years, but they’ve done a great job of buying into everything,” Fence said. “We need to play our brand of football and have the fundamentals. Against Asbury Park, we were undersized, which was tough for our offensive and defensive lines. We needed to correct mistakes and put ourselves in good situations. There were turnovers [by Asbury Park], and we did not take advantage of the mistakes. We need to do that and not make our own mistakes. Those are things that will be worked on starting early next year with offseason workouts for the many promising prospects that are returning.”
