By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @Gdsullysays
EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP — If you haven’t heard the name Donovan Linthicum, well, now you have.
The Oakcrest junior middle linebacker said he had zero college offers coming into Saturday afternoon’s tilt against Hammonton at the Battle at the Beach showcase event. That will change very quickly if he continues to play the way he did against the Blue Devils.
Linthicum clearly was the best player on the field at Eagle Stadium, as he racked up 109 yards rushing on just six carries, scored two touchdowns and a two-point conversion, had eight tackles — including five for loss — and spearheaded an Oakcrest defense that held Hammonton to just 51 rushing yards and no points in the Falcons’ 20-0 victory.
His 73-yard touchdown run was quite literally the only offense for either team in the first three quarters, although Oakcrest got things going in the fourth quarter, scoring 14 points.
“He’s 100 miles per hour, every single day, every second. He’s the type of kid who you don’t have to guess on what he’s doing. If we say we have a certain workout and the coaches are not looking, he’s getting it all done,” said Oakcrest coach Mike Forest. “He’s the guy who does the extra. He’s that guy that everyone wants on their team. He does everything the way you want it done, makes very few mistakes and if he does, he fixes it quickly. He’s just a special kid and I’m glad he’s on my team.”
Oakcrest (1-0, 0-0 West Jersey Football League Liberty) rushed for 170 yards on 29 carries — good for nearly six yards per rush — but still struggle to maintain drives early on. After three straight possessions ended with punts to start the game, Forest decided to put the ball in Linthicum’s hands on offense. He had just 11 carries for 52 yards in his career prior to this season, but eclipsed that yardage mark with one run on Saturday. With time winding under three minutes in a scoreless first half, Linthicum took a handoff, burst through the line, cut to the left and outran the Hammonton defense down the left sideline to put Oakcrest up, 6-0. Despite that early success, Forest used Linthicum sparingly, in part because he’s the most valuable player on the defense.
“He’s a guy who we definitely want to get more carries, but we have some other great backs, too. Jaleel (Williams) is a great back, and (Lawrence) Bennett’s a great back, so we definitely will continue to spread it out, but, yeah, (Donovan) is a special kid so he’ll get a couple more (carries per game),” Forest said.
Williams — nicknamed “Tank” — and Bennett combined for 80 yards 16 carries. Linthicum said, with a smile after the game, that he’s certainly open to getting more carries.
“At hard times the team might need something else to pick up the pace. If they need me (at running back) I’m going to be there. I’ve always been a team player and I’m not going to stop that now. I’ll do what’s best for the team,” he said. “We just needed something to give us a push, a little boost of energy. If the team needs me (to run the ball more), absolutely, I’ll do what’s best for the team.”
The second half started with a combined four punts and a fumble before Oakcrest salted the game away early in the fourth quarter with a 71-yard drive that was capped with Linthicum’s 6-yard scoring run and subsequent two-point conversion. That put Oakcrest up, 14-0, and in the final minute of play the Falcons added to the score as Zicri Forest returned a punt 28 yards for a touchdown.
On the Falcons’ final scoring drive they got a couple of nice plays in the passing game from quarterback Andrew Estrada, who finished 8-of-16 for 120 yards.
“This is Andrew’s first year at the helm so we just needed him to get these first-game jitters out,” Forest said. “We know what he can do. He’ll be able to spread it out, as you can see toward the end of the game we were able to spread it out a good amount. We’ll be OK, we’ll get it fixed up and we should be able to sling the ball a lot more in the coming weeks.”
“This is huge. A lot of people doubt us and don’t think we can do much because we’re a smaller program, but we’re building something very special over here,” Linthicum said. “We just need to play a savage brand of football, that’s all we need to do. I try to just block everything out and think to myself, ‘just do what you can do, play to the best of your ability, and the outcome will be the best it can possibly be.’ That comes from the heart.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Oakcrest travels to Holy Spirit on Sept. 6 at 6 p.m. Hammonton travels to Mainland on Sept. 6 at 6 p.m.
Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com.
