Last year’s loss to High School North may have been just a glitch in South’s run to the state championship, but it did serve as motivation, says senior quarterback Connor Farrell.##M:[more]##
While South used that game, its only loss that season, to propel it into the state championship game at Rutgers Stadium, Farrell says this year the goal is to make sure that kind of game does not happen again. So far, so good.
Not only did South kick off its season with a win over Lawrence, 48-32, on September 13, Farrell surpassed the CVC record —342 yards — set in 2002, by throwing for 457 yards. He completed 18-of-28 passes, including five touchdowns.
Farrell credits his receivers with a major part of the milestone. “Lawrence took away our running game. It’s my job, and our receivers’ job, to just put up as many points on the board as we could.”
Against Lawrence receiver Jeff Riemann scored the game’s first touchdown on a 40-yard pass from Farrell. He finished with five catches and 143 yards, while Henry MacQueen had a total 203 receiving yards, including two touchdowns. Tailback Dave Twamley had 88 yards and a touchdown. The team followed its debut performance with another win over Hightstown on September 20, 49-20. Twamley rushed for 232 yards, including five touchdowns, on 19 carries.
Over the summer, Farrell says he worked on getting “quicker feet” to allow him to move around better in the pocket. “Our goal is to win every game, and finish out the season with a win at Rutgers Stadium,” he says.
Farrell wants to continue playing football in college and is looking to enter the recruiting process. He says he is interested in playing for schools like Harvard, Princeton, or Dartmouth. Off the field, Farrell says he might be interested in pursuing a career in business and engineering. His favorite subject at South is math. Farrell has lived in West Windsor for a total of 12 years, even though he and his family spent three years in Italy, as a result of his father’s job. His father, who was appointed this month to the open position on the school board (see story page 11), is currently the assistant dean for graduate programs at Rider. Farrell’s mother has a background in healthcare and hospital administration.
For now, though, Farrell’s only focus is on the task on hand. He says that while J.B. Fitzgerald, one of the star receivers on last year’s squad who now plays for Michigan, was a great asset to the team with his receiving abilities, Jack Dennehy has stepped up to become the receiver the team really needs.
On Saturday, September 27, South will face Trenton, and then play Hamilton West the week after. “We are obviously a little confident from our first two wins, but Trenton’s a dangerous team. They’re very athletically gifted,” he said. “They could show up and knock our socks off. Hamilton West is historically a very good program in the conference, and we can’t take that lightly at all.”
Of course, the North-South game, Saturday, October 18, is sure to be a showcase of a traditional rivalry.
And while Farrell can get a bit of confidence from his record-breaking performance thus far, he knows he cannot rely on his past performances. “I try to put the past in the past,” he says. “We’ve still got 10 games to play.”
