By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
ABSECON — Camden High football coach Rob Hinson talked a lot during his pregame speech Friday night about handling adversity. In the everyday lives of his players, who live in a city that has been through some hard times, as well as on the football field.
“How are you going to respond when faced with adversity?” That was the question he asked his players before they took the field against a Holy Spirit team that traditionally is one of the toughest to beat when they are playing at home at Ed Byrnes Stadium.
The Panthers faced all kinds of adversity, including an early two-score deficit as well as losing several players to injury, but rose above it all behind Pleasantville transfer quarterback Ahmad Jones and a group of gritty seniors. Camden roared back to score a 28-14, gut-check win over the Spartans, a week after the Panthers lost by just one point at home against Shawnee.
It was the kind of road win Hinson and his staff may point to as a turning point if the Panthers end up competing for a sectional title in November.
“We work hard. The people around me work hard. We always talk about adversity and our pregame speech was about adversity — the things they have to deal with that a lot of folks don’t have to deal with, certain things in their lives, the frustrations that they deal with. So, adversity is not new to them, but I wanted to make sure that we’re handling it the right way,” Hinson said. “We knew they were going to be tough. Everybody said they lost a lot of guys (from last year), which they did, but their coaching staff is phenomenal. I played college ball (with some of them) at Lafayette and I know how hard they work and coach. I think we might have worn them down a little bit later in the game because most of their team plays both ways. We’re just happy to come out of here with a win because Holy Spirit doesn’t lose many games at home regardless of who they have.”
Camden (3-1, 0-1 West Jersey Football League Colonial) was behind the 8-ball from the start, as Holy Spirit (2-2, 1-0 WJFL Constitution) drove the length of the field and ate up more than five minutes of the first quarter on its first drive. The Spartans were stopped at the 1-yard line as senior defensive back Jawan Brownlee broke up a fourth-down pass in the end zone, but the Panthers’ first play with new quarterback Jones under center was a disaster, as Spirit’s Brady Colbe pounced on a fumble in the end zone. Dylan Taboga’s extra point gave the Spartans a 7-0 lead after Camden ran just one play.
The Panthers found themselves down 14-0 early in the second quarter when Spartans quarterback Ty Costabile hooked up with senior receiver Emanuel Gerena on a 93-yard touchdown pass down the right sideline. But Camden began to turn things around on the ensuing kickoff, as senior running back Ibn Muhammad took it to the house from 74 yards out. Winslow transfer Roman Duckett pounded his way in on the 2-point conversion as Camden pulled within 14-8.
From there, Camden’s defense, led by ends Haleem Muhammad, a senior, and sophomore Andre Robinson, completely dominated Holy Spirit. Muhammad consistently got into the backfield, and Robinson — a 6-foot-4, 205-pound physical specimen — batted down several passes that stalled Spartans drives.
“I believe in our defense. (Andre Robinson) is a sophomore but I believe in our young bulls,” Ibn Muhammad said. “I told them, ‘we got this.’ And they came out and balled, they tackled. They executed the great game plan we went over all week in practice. This was a rough game, but we knew we had to bounce back (from last week). We knew we didn’t want to take any more losses this year and we had to fight hard, and that’s what we did.”
Big plays continued to be the theme, as Jones scrambled for a 19-yard touchdown run to help Camden tie the game at 14 heading into halftime, and in the third quarter senior back Christian Braxton ripped off a 62-yard run, bouncing it to the outside after initially encountering some resistance at the line. Then, in the fourth quarter, Ibn Muhammad scored from 56 yards out to help seal the victory.
“The big plays came about because we knew when we saw the holes we had to hit it, there was no stutter-stepping around,” Muhammad said. “During my touchdown run, I saw it open up, (the defender) tried to chase me down and he was fast. I started cramping up a little bit so I had to stiff-arm him to keep going.”
Camden finished with 210 yards rushing and Jones bounced back from a tough start to have a pretty good game, completing 8-of-13 passes for 135 yards. Hinson said they are just getting started with Jones, however, and the Panthers are expecting big things from the senior going forward.
“He’s a much better quarterback than he showed tonight, but he’s a kid who you can coach hard. A lot of kids right now, you can’t really coach them hard, you have to be mindful of how you deal with them, but with him, I can coach him hard. He has a lot more in him than he showed tonight. We’re ready to see what he can do after this game,” Hinson said. “I want us to get to a point where we can actually sustain drives and not rely so much on the big play and I think that’s going to happen. We’re getting better each week. We want to be able to sustain drives and lean on people, run the ball whenever we want and throw the ball whenever we want. We have the receivers, an experienced quarterback, a big line, experienced running backs. I feel like we should be able to impose our will on some teams sometimes.”
Camden lost two starters to injury, and they had to be carted off the field, which added some incentive to play better, Ibn Muhammad said. The players wanted to get the win for their injured teammates.
“We were thinking we had to it for them, the person next to us. We lost two guys, but we came back, we fought hard, we showed that grit — all the players and the coaches — we stuck together and we came out of here with a ‘W,’” he said. “We knew we had to stick together and pick each other up. If we messed up on a play, just worry about the next one, and that’s exactly what we did.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Camden travels to Rancocas Valley on Friday at 6 p.m. Holy Spirit travels to Cedar Creek on Friday at 6 p.m.
