Cam Czwakiel Leads Dominant Second Half for Middletown South Flag Football to Reach SCT Final

OCEANPORT – Once the sun mercifully started to set in the second half of Tuesday’s Shore Conference Tournament semifinals on a 95-degree day, the Middletown South flag football offense and senior quarterback Cam Czwakiel were ready to heat up.

“After the sun went down, it relieved the pressure on us,” Czwakiel said with a smile. “The sun is terrible for our team. Once we cooled down a little, we were good.” 

“When the sun was out it made us a lot more tired,” senior wide receiver Ava Loucopoulos said. “Once we got the shade and a breeze, it made a big difference.”

A little less heat gave Czwakiel enough energy to turn up the temperature on the Trinity Hall defense with her ability to keep plays alive in the backfield, leading to the Eagles dominating the second half en route to a 31-13 win over the previously unbeaten Monarchs (9-1) at Blackberry Bay Park. 

Czwakiel threw two touchdown passes, ran for two more scores and had an interception on defense to send the third-seeded Eagles (10-1) to the SCT championship game on the road against unbeaten No. 1 seed Barnegat (10-0) on Thursday.

Middletown South trailed 7-6 at halftime before rattling off 25 unanswered points to put the game away. Czwakiel finished 17-for-27 for 239 yards passing and also ran for 45 yards to reaffirm her reputation as the Shore’s best dual threat quarterback. 

“They didn’t do man, but they kind of zoned us out,” Czwakiel said about Trinity Hall’s defense. “The rushing pressure on me was a lot at the beginning, but then I realized who was rushing me, how to get away, and all the pressure came off me, and I was able to throw it deep.” 

Trinity Hall took a 7-0 lead when sophomore quarterback Sonia DeRosa hit senior wideout Maddie Rigney for a 25-yard touchdown and then found Niamh Stapleton for the extra point with 8:49 left in the first half. 

Middletown South answered only three plays later when Czwakiel eluded a defender, rolled back to her right and fired a pass over the middle to Loucopoulos, one of the Shore’s top receivers. She broke free of a pack of defenders and took off to complete a 58-yard touchdown that cut it to 7-6. 

“I just had to calm down,” Czwakiel said. “We knew what plays we could do and what plays work the best for us, and throwing long to Ava is what I usually do. She’s my girl. She has the sticky hands. And I knew if I threw it up she would make a play, and she got it.” 

“Normally I just try to find an open spot because I know sometimes Cammy will start running around, so I’ll get in her sight so she can get the ball to me, and I just ran when I realized (the defender) didn’t pull my flags,”  Loucopoulos said. 

The Eagles’ defense then made a key stand when Bella Skalaski came up with a sack on DeRosa on fourth-and-goal from the 4-yard line to kill a promising drive by the second-seeded Monarchs. Emily Venezia got it right back for Trinity Hall with an interception, but then Sunnie Hanning came up with an interception for Middletown South to send it into halftime with the Monarchs’ lead still at 7-6. 

The Eagles dominated the second half behind a combination of big plays and stifling defense. They held DeRosa, one of the Shore’s top quarterbacks, to 45 yards passing in the second half and registered two interceptions to shut Trinity Hall out after the break. The Monarchs entered averaging 31.2 points per game. 

“We know that (DeRosa) can throw the ball far, so we were just trying to slow her down by rushing her,” Kapler said. 

“We kind of just went with the philosophy that we’re not going to get beat deep, and we’re just going to make it hard on everyone,” Middletown South head coach Marc Tomo said. “After a few plays, we kind of figured out what they were doing. They were just flooding one side and then they would throw back to the center, so we started having a girl sit on the center. We ended up getting three interceptions doing that.” 

After the teams traded possessions to start the third quarter, the Eagles took a lead they would not relinquish. Czwakiel ran for a 10-yard touchdown to make it 12-7, and then a fourth-down stop on a flag pull by sophomore Helana Thompson got the ball back for Middletown South. Thompson also had nine catches for 62 yards on offense in the win. 

Three plays later, Czwakiel once again scrambled to keep a play alive and whipped a pass to Kapler, who spun around a defender and sprinted for a 60-yard touchdown. The second explosive touchdown of the night gave Middletown South an 18-7 lead with 10:25 left in the game. 

“Kaleigh is very athletic,” Czwakiel said. “Even just getting her the ball, we knew that she could make her moves, do spin moves and eventually get a touchdown.” 

“I was kind of just running and saw an opening gap and just turned my body,” Kapler said “I saw (Czwakiel) was looking at me, so I just came to the ball and moved my hips.” 

Middletown South’s receivers are coached on how to keep moving even if they don’t get the ball at first because of Czwakiel’s ability to extend plays. 

“We’re kind of like a home run-type team,” Tomo said. “We know the more chances we get, we have four or five kids that can go deep. A lot of it is like if it’s not there right away, we have a whole philosophy of where we need to go and positions to go to get open because we know she can extend the play, and we work with our blockers on where we want her to escape.” 

The Eagles ended any suspense when Czwakiel intercepted a tipped pass on defense and returned it to Trinity Hall’s 10-yard line. Four plays later, she scored on a 1-yard keeper for a 24-7 advantage with 6:30 left in the game. 

Middletown South tacked on one more score when backup quarterback Sam Evans found Brooke MacGregor for a 22-yard touchdown pass. Trinity Hall scored in the waning seconds on a 37-yard touchdown throw from backup quarterback Maddie Dougherty to Rigney for the final margin. 

After a loss to Pinelands in last year’s semifinals, Middletown South was eager to get back to this spot and take it a step further. 

“I’m so excited we finally have the opportunity to go out and win it all,” Czwakiel said.

Czwakiel was named the Shore Conference Player of the Year by the coaches in 2025, so with her returning along with talented veterans like Kapler and Loucopoulos, the Eagles felt like they had the ingredients to win it all this season. 

“Once Cam was back, we talked about it. Nooch and I, we were joking one day, it’s like Knowshon Moreno,” Tomo said in reference to former Middletown South head coach Steve Antonucci and the Eagles’ legendary running back from the early 2000s. 

“You know what you have, and you’re like, ‘Let’s see where it takes us.’” 

They will now try to be the first opponent to take down the Shore’s only remaining unbeaten team.  Barnegat averages a Shore Conference-leading 31.7 points per game behind the Shore’s leading passer, sophomore star quarterback Camila Chamorro. Middletown South hasn’t allowed more than 13 points in a game all season, so something has to give. 

“That’s going to be difficult competition, but I feel like if we go out there and play like we have all season, I feel like we can beat them,” Czwakiel said. 

Scott Stump is the football editor and a reporter for Shore Sports Insider. He first started covering Shore Conference football in 1999 and has covered basketball, baseball and seemingly every other Shore Conference sport at some point. 

Email: scottstump25@gmail.com