Etienne, Tackett lead Manasquan’s late rally to take down No. 5 Point Boro

MANASQUAN — The story of a football game can be told mostly through statistics. Points, yards, turnovers, sacks, penalties and the other line items of a box score that sports are often reduced to. They drive analytics like never before, influencing decisions from the youth leagues up to the professional ranks.

A box score will tell you a lot, but it can’t quantify the how. Intangibles tell that story. Athletic buzz words like poise, grit and clutch are regularly the difference between winning and losing. They don’t show up on the score sheet; you have to see them in action. And when you do, you just understand. It’s how Manasquan rallied in the final minutes of the fourth quarter on Saturday for a huge rivalry win.

Trailing Point Boro, the No. 5 team in the Shore Sports Insider Top 12, by three points midway through the fourth quarter, the Warriors delivered a defensive stop on fourth-and-1, then put together a 63-yard, go-ahead scoring drive to beat the Panthers, 14-10, in a thrilling showdown of longtime rivals on Saturday afternoon at Vic Kubu Warrior Field.

Senior quarterback Frank Tackett scrambled and hit junior tight end Luke Barry for 21 yards on fourth-and-5 to keep Manasquan alive, then senior running back Ace Etienne broke a 27-yard run down to the 11-yard line. On third down, Etienne took a toss and made a tackler miss on his way to a 6-yard touchdown run that put Manasquan ahead for good. On the final play of the game with Point Boro trying for a desperation heave, junior defensive lineman Nick Loughrey delivered a blindside strip sack to put the exclamation point on the Warriors’ first win over Point Boro since 2021.

“Coach Price always says, you use 60% of what you have, but you have to dig deeper and use that other 40%,” Etienne said. “I felt like, as a team, we all unlocked that 40%. We dug deep and that’s how we were able to win.”

“We worked, in the weight room all offseason and on the field this week preparing for Point, and in the fourth it showed right there,” Tackett said. “We gave it all at the end and came out with the W.”

“I don’t know how to explain that fourth quarter,” Manasquan head coach Jay Price said. “Sometimes you just come up with things when you need to come up with them. Never count us out if we’re in it.”

Manasquan is now 2-0 for the second straight season, the first time the Warriors have done so since the 2005 and 2006 seasons.

Etienne ran for 161 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries, while Tackett combined for 94 yards between rushing and passing and scored on a 9-yard run in the second quarter. He did throw one interception, but made up for it with a strip and fumble recovery on defense. He delivered on four key third- or fourth-down plays with a pair of third-and-long conversions, a scramble on fourth-and-4 in the fourth quarter and then the must-have completion to Barry on the go-ahead drive.

“He’s a great athlete and a phenomenal competitor,” Price said. “What we’re asking him to do on both sides of the ball, for someone his size, he’s tough as nails and never quits. You want someone like that in your corner.”

“Frank is a great player overall,” Etienne said. “The team would not be complete without him.”

Junior quarterback Jake Clayton ran for 83 yards on 17 carries for Point Boro, which is 0-2 for the first time since the Covid-shortened 2020 season and for the first time in a full season since 2013. Senior Jack Scalabrini scored on a 6-yard run and junior Jack Sullivan kicked a 21-yard field goal. Freshman defensive back Lincoln Blasi recorded his first career interception and junior Mason Morris recovered a fumble. After finishing with the No. 4 scoring offense in the Shore last season (33.2 ppg), the Panthers’ usual high-powered flexbone offense has scored only one touchdown in two games. They moved the ball on Manasquan but struggled to finish drives and create chunk plays. Their longest gain was 15 yards as Manasquan held them to just five plays of 10 yards or more.

“We told them at halftime, we just have to make them line up for another play,” Price said. “As long as they’re lining up for another play, we’re going to be okay. So far this season, (the defense) has done everything we’ve asked them to do.”

“Nothing crazy. All 11 guys did their assignments,” Etienne said. “You have to be disciplined.”

Point Boro did indeed keep lining up for plays on the game’s opening series with a 15-play, 70-yard drive that eroded the first nine minutes of the first quarter. Senior running back Calvin Videon-Perino gained 15 yards on third-and-5 to set up a first-and-goal a the 10-yard line. Manasquan’s defense dug in its heels and forced Point Boro to attempt a field goal that Sullivan connected on from 21 yards out for a 3-0 lead.

It stayed that way until the final five minutes of the first half. Manasquan took over at its own 33-yard line with 5:18 on the clock and embarked on a scoring drive that gave the Warriors a halftime lead. A false start penalty created a third-and-8 from the 35-yard line, and Tackett was able to scramble for 10 yards and a first down. Etienne followed with a 20-yard run, and Tackett hit senior wide receiver Joey Dettlinger for 14 yards down to the Point Boro 21-yard line. On first-and-goal from the 9, Tackett scrambled to his right and won a footrace to the pylon to give Manasquan a 7-3 lead with 45 seconds left in the half.

The teams traded turnovers in the middle portion of the third quarter with Tackett ripping the ball away from a Point Boro running back at the end of a run, and Blasi getting it right back by leaping to snare Tackett’s pass at the Boro 23-yard line. The Panthers spun that turnover into points with a 14-play, 77-yard scoring drive that produced their first touchdown of the season and gave them a 10-7 lead early in the fourth quarter.

Clayton and junior running back Nick Spanola had the bulk of the carries on the drive, including Clayton gaining seven yards on fourth-and-2. Scalabrini finished the series by diving across the goal line for a 6-yard touchdown run with 10:41 left in the game.

Point Boro then came up with a huge stop when Morris pounced on a fumble at the Warriors’ 45-yard line with 6:56 left. The Panthers had already churned out two scoring drives that spanned over 10 plays and chewed up at least six-and-a-half minutes, so there was a very real chance that Manasquan would not get the ball back.

“We just had to keep calm and give it our all,” Tackett said. “That’s what we said to each other. Don’t freak out. Seven minutes is a long time, so that was the mindset the whole time.”

A fumble on first down for a one-yard loss was followed by five-yard gains by Videon-Perino and junior D.J. Albanese, bringing up fourth-and-1 from the Manasquan 36. Point Boro had trouble on the snap/exchange and fumbled. The Panthers recovered, but not beyond the line to gain, giving Manasquan the ball back with just over three minutes left.

Point Boro stuffed Etienne for no gain on first and second down before he surged ahead for five yards on third down. Now it was fourth-and-5 from the 42-yard line with 2:30 left. No margin for error.

Tackett took the snap and rolled to his left before pulling up and firing a pass downfield as the Point Boro pass rush descended upon him. The ball felt like it was in the air for a year and could have landed in just about anyone’s arms, but Barry came across the formation and back toward the line of scrimmage, where he lunged forward to make the catch for a 21-yard gain and a first down. On the next play, Etienne burst into the second level for a 27-yard gain down to the Point Boro 11. Manasquan was now at least in field goal range for Dettlinger, but there was plenty of time to go for the win.

Etienne gained five yards on first down before fullback Tommy Certo was stopped for no gain on second down. On third-and-5, Etienne took a toss to the right side, slightly cut it back inside, and split the Point Boro defense for a 6-yard touchdown to give Manasquan the lead.

“It was amazing blocking, and we got the job done,” Etienne said.

Point Boro’s triple-option offense is not built to score quickly from beyond midfield, especially on a day when big plays were at a premium. The Panthers gained one first down, but Manasquan’s defense made sure any prayers would not be answered.

“We just made a huge statement today,” Tackett said. “It shows we’re one of the best teams in the Shore. I know not a lot of people thought that, but we proved it today.”

They did it with the traits Manasquan’s program is known for, a signature combination of determination, belief, tradition and poise that has produced a Shore Conference record 12 NJSIAA sectional championships.

“Not to get too deep, but we’ve relied on kids to pass that (tradition) down and there were a couple years there where I don’t think it was,” Price said. “We took the initiative and, long story short, we ran a 16-week book club, and we came out of that with different kids with a different mentality. I’m not saying that’s going to be the difference in our season, but late in quarters, I know things that we talked about in that book showed up on the field.”

 

Box Score

Manasquan 14, No. 5 Point Boro 10

	Point Boro	Manasquan
First downs	12	13
Rushes-yards	41-224	34-212
Passing	2-4-0	4-7-1
Passing yards	15	59
Fumbles-lost	5-1	1-1
Penalties-yards	3-15	4-25

 

Point Boro (0-2)	3	0	0	7	10
Manasquan (2-0)	0	7	0	7	14

 

Scoring Summary

PB — Jack Sullivan 21-yard field goal

M — Frank Tackett 9-yard run (Joey Dettlinger kick)

PB — Jack Scalabrini 6-yard run (Jack Sullivan kick)

M — Ace Etienne 6-yard run (Joey Dettlinger kick)

 

Individual Statistics

RUSHING — PB: Jake Clayton 17-83, Calvin Videon-Perino 8-51, DJ Albanese 8-43, Nick Spanola 6-38, Jack Scalabrini 2-9; M: Ace Etienne 21-161, Frank Tackett 6-35, Dax Klein 5-14, Tommy Certo 2-2.

PASSING — PB: Jake Clayton 2-4-0 15; M: Frank Tackett 4-6-1 59, Dax Klein 0-1-0 0.

RECEIVING — PB: Nick Spanola 1-10, Team 1-5; M: Joey Dettlinger 2-24, Luke Barry 1-21, Jack O’Reilly 1-14.

INTERCEPTIONS — PB: Lincoln Blasi 1-0.