Rumson-Fair Haven roars into Group 2 final behind Owen O’Toole, stout defense

RUMSON – Rumson-Fair Haven knew Point Boro wanted revenge in the state playoffs after losing to the Bulldogs in the regular season.

Not as badly as Rumson wanted another chance to win a Group 2 title.

The Bulldogs roared into their third straight Group 2 final with a 44-10 win over the Panthers (10-3) in the Group 2 semifinals on Friday night at Borden Stadium, dramatically widening the gap after beating them 41-28 during the regular season.

“We like to say, ‘We’re not hard to find,'” senior quarterback Owen O’Toole said. “The playoffs run through here the past two years, and we knew it was going to happen again. (Point Boro) wanted us, but we wanted something bigger. Walking off the field at Rutgers, it’s a deeper feeling than just the beginning of the year. Regular season, it’s different. When you make it that close and get that far and don’t win, it stings and it motivates you for the next year.”

O’Toole, who is No. 2 in Shore Conference history with 6,994 yards passing along with 68 touchdown passes, finished 28-for-37 for a career-high 334 yards on a rainy night and also ran for a pair of touchdowns to help power the win. He has run for a combined five touchdowns in Rumson’s last two playoff games and now has 2,788 yards passing this season.

The senior wide receiver tandem of Nick Thomas and Jordan Angstreich each had 10 catches, with Angstreich finishing with 130 yards and Thomas with 123. There’s a chance with one more big game by Thomas that the two could become the first teammates in Shore Conference history to both go over 1,000 yards receiving in the same season. Angstreich has a school single-season record 1,171 yards and Thomas has 816.

Junior running back Kellen Murray had 48 yards rushing and a pair of touchdowns, and do-it-all senior Carson Memmott kicked three field goals, five extra points and had an interception return for a touchdown on defense for the unbeaten Bulldogs.

A defensive masterpiece

The Rumson defense held Point Boro to a season-low 10 points and bottled up a triple option rushing attack that entered the night averaging 35.1 points per game. They are the first team since 2020 not to allow a rushing touchdown by the Panthers.

Rumson (12-0), which is ranked No. 2 in the Shore Sports Insider Top 12, is one win away from its first Group 2 title after losing a pair of heartbreakers in the past two championship games. The Bulldogs will also shoot for their first unbeaten season since 1959 when they take on Shabazz (10-2), which won 8-7 over Hanover Park on Friday night, in the Group 2 final, tentatively scheduled for Dec. 4 at Rutgers.

“We’re the best team in the Shore,” senior linebacker Austin Kiernan said. “We’re going to prove something at Rutgers that we didn’t prove the last two years. We’re coming back, and we’re going to win it all.”

Point Boro, ranked No. 3 in the SSI Top 12, had 207 yards rushing, led by 98 from senior fullback Dylan Reitmeyer, and averaged 4.8 yards per carry. However, Rumson’s defense came up with big stops on fourth down in addition to producing four turnovers. The number is also a little misleading because 36 of those rushing yards came on a Point Boro drive in garbage time in the final minutes.

It was a dramatic improvement from their regular-season meeting, when Point Boro ran for 324 yards.

“We kind of looked at the tape, and we knew all the responsibilities, the assignments, the alignments, the technique,” Kiernan said. “It’s just hitting the mesh point. They’re a great team, they’re here for a reason, but we’ve been drilling against it, and we played with great heart.”

“As a defense, we got a lot better,” sophomore defensive lineman Ben Gredell said. “We read them like a book. There was nothing they could do. It starts up front. We made sure we dominated.”

They also sent a message from the outset that this game would be different. Point Boro won the toss and elected to receive, but Rumson immediately killed the Panthers’ first drive when senior cornerback Evan Ridgway picked off a pass at the Bulldogs’ 26-yard line.

Bulldogs start fast

The Shore Conference’s highest-scoring offense then jumped out to a 10-0 lead and never looked back after getting the early turnover on defense.

After Ridgway’s interception gave Rumson its first possession, the Bulldogs drove 57 yards to take a 3-0 lead on Memmott’s 23-yard field goal with 4:36 left in the first quarter. Rumson’s defense came up with another stop to set up an 11-play, 64-yard drive that culminated with a one-yard touchdown run by O’Toole for a 10-0 advantage.

Rumson is normally a balanced offense, but O’Toole came out throwing and didn’t stop. He attempted passes on 15 of Rumson’s first 21 plays, and on two other plays he was going to throw but was sacked.

“They just had a heavy box early,” O’Toole said about Point Boro. “Their gameplan was to stop the run, and we figured that out really early. We expected them to go one high (safety) and they went two-high, and when they line up those corners against our receivers, we have six that can make any play on the field.”

Down by 10, the Panthers went on one of their patented clock-eating drives, chewing up nearly 10 minutes on 15 plays, but had to settle for a 22-yard field goal by 22-yard field goal by Jack Sullivan to make it 10-3 with 1:40 left in the half.

That left enough time for Rumson to drive down to Point Boro’s 5-yard line in 13 plays, setting up a 22-yard field goal by Memmott as time expired for a 13-3 halftime advantage.

Rumson throws the knockout punch 

Point Boro appeared to have some momentum after getting a stop to start the third quarter and closing the gap to 13-10 on a 51-yard touchdown pass from Jake Clayton to Calvin Videon-Perino. Rumson then exploded for 31 unanswered points.

The Bulldogs answered Point Boro’s touchdown with a seven-play, 80-yard drive featuring a sensational, leaping 39-yard catch over a defender by Angstreich that set up a 2-yard touchdown run by Murray. Rumson’s defense then got a stop on fourth down at Point Boro’s 47-yard line when a host of Bulldogs hit sophomore slotback Nick Spanola for no gain on fourth-and-2.

Nine plays later, Murray scored on a two-yard run for a 27-10 advantage, with senior wide receiver Nick Economou chipping in 32 yards on a pair of catches on the drive.

A fumble recovery at Point Boro’s 23-yard line on the Panthers’ next possession set up a 30-yard field goal by Memmott for a 30-10 lead. That put Point Boro in position to have to throw the ball, which they had only done 30 times the entire season entering the game.

Memmott was waiting, as he picked off a pass from sophomore quarterback Jake Clayton and raced down the Rumson sideline for a 31-yard pick-six and a 37-10 lead.

Bulldogs senior linebacker Jacob Tobias then recovered a fumble at the 23-yard line by Point Boro on the ensuing kickoff. Thomas took a reverse for 22 yards and then O’Toole capped the win with his second one-yard keeper for a score and a 44-10 lead. Rumson scored 24 points in a span of four minutes to turn the game into a rout.

What’s next? 

Point Boro concludes a season in which it won the South Jersey Group 2 title for its second sectional title in the past four seasons. Of the Panthers’ three losses, two of them were to undefeated Rumson and the other was to undefeated Toms River North, the top-ranked team in the Shore Sports Insider Top 12 and a finalist in Group 5 for the third straight season.

Rumson, meanwhile, will now look to finally get over the hump in the Group 2 final after losing 21-20 in overtime against unbeaten Westwood last season and 18-14 to undefeated Caldwell in 2022. There have only been three Group 2 finals since the NJSIAA expanded the playoffs, and Rumson will now have played in all of them.

“Last year I was a freshman, and I watched from the sidelines and saw the hurt in everyone’s eyes,” Gredell said. “It’s amazing to be back there and get another chance. And trust me, we’re going to win it this time.”

Unlike the past two seasons when the games were toss-ups or Rumson was an underdog, the undefeated Bulldogs will be favored to win this time when they take on Shabazz. Rumson is ranked No. 7 in the state by NJ Advance Media, while Shabazz is unranked.

“This team, we don’t want (to be) the underdog,” O’Toole said. “We don’t care for that mentality. We like to be at the top and stay at the top.”