Reigning Monarchs: Unbeaten Trinity Hall Flag Football Takes Big Step Toward Division Title

OCEANPORT – In a season where the race to be the Shore Conference flag football champion looks fairly wide open, Trinity Hall has put its name right at the front of the conversation. 

However, the unbeaten Monarchs are not getting caught looking ahead to all that just yet. 

“I know there’s a lot of good teams out there that we have yet to play and we’ll probably end up facing, so we just have to stay ready and forget about yesterday,” sophomore quarterback/safety Sonia DeRosa said. 

Trinity Hall remains razor sharp as the postseason looms in two weeks. The Monarchs took a big step toward the Shore Conference Central Division title with a 47-13 rout of Neptune on Tuesday on their home field at Blackberry Bay Park in Oceanport. 

DeRosa was sensational, going 21-for-27 for 248 yards passing and five touchdowns, while also snagging three interceptions on defense, one of which she returned for a touchdown. Five different receivers caught touchdowns for the Monarchs (6-0, 6-0) to show the depth of a team that is averaging 42.3 points over its last four games. 

Senior Maddie Rigney had six catches for 90 yards, a touchdown and a catch for an extra point, senior Niamh Stapleton had a touchdown grab and two extra point catches, senior Chloe Ciccone finished with three catches and a touchdown, freshman Maddie Dougherty had five catches for 59 yards and a touchdown as well as a touchdown run, and senior Emily Venezia added a touchdown catch in the win. 

“Every time I look downfield there’s at least one option open calling for the ball. It’s great,” DeRosa said. “Especially against Neptune today, they put a lot of pressure on me, and I had to scramble out of the pocket, so it was very convenient to have all those girls as options open.”

“I think we got good balance across the grades and across the positions,” Trinity Hall coach John Polivka said. “We don’t have to overly rely on one or two players, which has often been the case in prior years.”

The sophomore quarterback was lethal on the run, rolling out to both sides and throwing strikes downfield. 

“I just think they put a lot of pressure on me so I was definitely running a lot more today than I have previously,” DeRosa said. “I like being able to throw on the run, for sure.”

DeRosa was one of the best freshmen in New Jersey last season, and she has taken her game up a notch as a sophomore. She now has 1,003 yards passing and 22 touchdowns in six games. 

“She’s more relaxed and more confident,” Polivka said. “This year she knows how to let a bad play roll off and come back for the next play.” 

There weren’t too many bad plays to worry about on Tuesday, as DeRosa came out on fire, completing her first eight passes for 106 yards and two touchdowns before throwing her first incompletion in the second quarter. 

DeRosa hit Stapleton for a 23-yard touchdown and then found Rigney for the extra point on Trinity Hall’s first possession, and the Monarchs never looked back. After a stop on downs on defense, DeRosa found Rigney for a 17-yard score that pushed the lead to 13-0 near the end of the first quarter. 

The advantage grew to 20-0 when DeRosa rolled out and found Ciccone, who made a juggling catch in the back of the end zone for a three-touchdown lead early in the second quarter. 

Neptune got on the board when junior quarterback Jacenia Furman found Nylah Sapp behind the defense for a 66-yard scoring strike to cut the lead to 20-6. The Scarlet Fliers then came up with a stop and had a chance to further cut into the lead before halftime, but DeRosa grabbed the first of her three interceptions to kill the threat. 

Trinity Hall put the game away early in the third quarter when DeRosa found Dougherty for a 10-yard touchdown pass and then Stapleton on the extra point for a 27-6 lead. DeRosa came up with her second interception on Neptune’s ensuing drive and returned it to the Scarlet Fliers’ 12-yard line. Three plays later, Dougherty scored on a 1-yard run and Venezia caught the extra point to balloon the lead to 34-6. 

Neptune responded with another longball, this time a 69-yard touchdown pass from Furman to junior star Lana Ellington that cut it to 34-13 after Furman’s extra point run. 

Trinity Hall came right back with an eight-play, 66-yard drive capped by a two-yard pass from DeRosa to Venezia and an extra point catch by Stapleton for a 41-13 advantage. The Monarchs tacked on one more score when DeRosa returned an interception 21 yards for a touchdown and an exclamation point on the victory. 

The Monarchs have been a consistent winner in their program’s existence, but they are showing this season that they have made the leap to a championship contender. 

“I feel like this year we just connected as a team early on,” DeRosa said. “We’ve had a lot of fun at practice. I think a big difference was playing over spring break. We didn’t really do too much last year over spring break, and this year we really focused. We had a couple practices and really locked down on memorizing our plays, and that was big.” 

They picked up wins over Colts Neck and Red Bank Catholic, who are now a combined 10-3, and survived a one-point game against Manalapan in their first three games. 

“It definitely helped set the tone for the team,” said Rigney, who leads the team with 11 touchdown catches. “We got stronger as we went, and we’ve never really stopped from there.” 

However, Trinity Hall learned a lesson from last season after starting 3-0 and then having the season slip away from there. They could be in the mix for the No. 1 seed when the Shore Conference Tournament is seeded on May 8, but they’re not worrying about that now with regular-season games against Marlboro, Freehold Township and Shore Regional still remaining.

Two more wins and they clinch no worse than a tie for the Central Division title. A clean sweep gives them the championship for themselves.  

“We had a good start last year, and it didn’t end great,” Rigney said. “I think that we just kind of slacked back, so we’re trying to not do that this year and just expect anything from any team.” 

“Last year we started strong and we faded, so my mantra is I don’t really care about what’s ahead,” Polivka said. “Let’s focus on today’s practice and the next game because it’s very easy for us to let up. This team is not looking ahead. They have seen that when we look ahead, it’s cost us.” 

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