Coming off last season’s exciting run to the Central Jersey Group IV sectional championship, the Pirates have been practicing hard this summer to prepare for the new season, which begins on Saturday, September 13, against Lawrence.
Returning this year to South are tailback David Twamley, quarterback Connor Farrell, and wide receiver Jeff Riemann, the team’s three captains. All three were first team All Conference players last season. Henry MacQueen will also be a key player, returning to play on the defensive and offensive lines, and Will Bryant will be returning on the offensive line.##M:[more]##
Todd Smith, who is returning for his fourth season as head coach, says he has been working to replace the offensive line, which was a huge asset for the team last year. Last season the Pirates returned all of their offensive linemen and big players, unlike this year. South fans will not get to see J.B. Fitzgerald, one of last year’s stars, who is off to play for the Wolverines at Michigan this year.
Despite losing some talent from last year’s squad to graduation, Smith says it is still business as usual. “We’ve always kept plugging in players,” he says. “Every year, we lose a whole bunch of kids. We don’t expect this year to be any different.”
So far, Smith said there are a couple of key areas on which the team has been focusing during practice this summer. The first is the “skill guys,” or the people that touch the ball, including wide receivers, cornerbacks, and running backs — “the people that do all the scoring and running,” Smith said.
In addition, “we’ve been putting a lot of onus on special teams this year,” Smith says. “We started it since day one. In the past three years, we realized it hasn’t been our best time on the field. We’re going to make sure we’re getting all the kids we can on the field.”
The team’s first scrimmage is scheduled for Friday, August 29, and Smith says he is happy with the amount of hard work at practice his team has put in over the summer.
“I think this is the fastest team in the four years I’ve been here,” Smith says. “Our kids have just worked tremendously. The problems is we’re not that deep, and that’s our main goal throughout camp.”
The Pirates are coming off a 10-2 season last year and made it to the state sectional championship before falling to Howell at Rutgers Stadium.
“Last year we knew we had a lot of talent, and we wanted to get there,” he said. This year, “we don’t need to be undefeated, but we just need to be good enough to get into the playoffs. If we can get into the playoffs, we can make a nice run at it.”
With, “one of the best trios in the state,” he says, referring to Twamley, Farrell, and Riemann, “if we can get in (the playoffs), I think we have a shot.”
