By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
Back in 2020 — which seems like a lifetime ago now, the covid year — the Mainland Regional High football team went just 2-4. Jake Meyers was the quarterback back then as a freshman before transferring to St. Augustine Prep, turning his concentration to baseball and leading the Hermits to a state championship in 2024.
The following year, Mainland went 4-6, but coach Chuck Smith and his staff played a bunch of sophomores that season, and welcomed in freshman signal caller John Franchini. The Stangs were young and took their lumps, but Smith knew he had something special with that group of underclassmen.
Mainland kept building, kept grinding it out in the weight room and film room — just waiting for the strength and experience to catch up to the talent and potential. It certainly has, as the Mustangs have gone 34-6 the past three years, won the Group 4 state championship in 2023 and made a surprising run back to a state title game this season despite losing a ton of talent and dealing with notable injuries all season long.
“In the past three seasons we played in a lot of big games, a lot of playoff games. We went to the sectional championship and the state finals, so these guys know what it’s like to be in a big game,” Smith said. “The atmosphere doesn’t bother them at all, they go in with the same mentality — and maybe even a little bit more confidence because of that experience they’ve had the past few seasons playing in these big games.”
In 2023, then-senior Stephen Ordille (now a freshman at Princeton University) rushed for nearly 2,000 yards and the Stangs had the state Defensive Player of the Year in Jamie Tyson (now a freshman at Villanova). Their linebackers — Cohen Cook, J.J. Sinclair and Rocco DeBiaso — combined for more than 300 tackles as the team went 14-0 and cruised to its first state championship, beating Ramapo 56-0 in the title game.
A lot of the stars graduated in June, and many of the remaining standout players dealt with injuries throughout the year, including DeBiaso, leading receiver Jake Blum and one of Mainland’s top defensive backs, Liam Kennedy. Still, Mainland made another sensational state playoff run, crushing Barnegat, Holmdel and Seneca in the sectional tournament before edging previously undefeated Somerville, 36-35, in the state semifinals. The run finally came to an end with a 28-16 loss to Old Tappan in the Group 3 state championship game.
“It was a tough loss. We blew too many opportunities and credit to them, they made plays when they had to. I definitely thought we had a shot of getting (to the state championship) this year. We did lose a lot of people, as everybody knows, but we had a lot of talent coming back. Whether or not we could put it all together was another thing, and there were points in the season where we were still trying to find our identity,” Smith explained. “But this is a talented group of kids, they all won championships in the junior league, and this is a group that we really looked forward to coming to Mainland. A lot of the kids who played as juniors lettered as freshmen and played meaningful minutes the past two seasons before this year. They had big shoes to fill this year, but they stuck to the plan. It took a little bit with the schedule that we had, but it all came together and we seemed to peak at the right time of year.”
What made Mainland’s run this season so impressive is a couple of factors. One, the Stangs lost a ton of talent from last year, including 45 of their 57 rushing touchdowns and 14 of their 21 receiving touchdowns. Two, Franchini had to work with basically and entirely new group of receivers, yet still managed to throw for 2,200+ yards and 21 touchdowns; Blum had just four catches last year as a sophomore but stepped up with 52 catches for nearly 1,300 yards and 15 touchdowns. Three, Mainland played a brutal schedule that included Atlantic City, Millville, St. Augustine Prep, Winslow, Cherokee, Ocean City and Delsea Regional. Egg Harbor Township and Hammonton were the only teams on their schedule that didn’t make the state playoffs, and the other seven teams on their regular-season schedule won at least one state playoff game. Winslow was the Group 4 state champion and a top-5 team in the state when it was all said and done.
“Our team came a long way. No one thought we’d be at this moment, so you can’t be that upset. I’m just proud of everybody on this team, and the coaches, for believing in each other. Our team just doesn’t quit, everyone is together as one. Everyone in our locker room and at our school knows where we can go, and I know Mainland will keep having that same determination to get back here,” DeBiaso said after the state championship loss. “The second we walked in this summer we all believed in each other and there was no doubt in our minds — no doubt with the coaching staff, no doubt in the players of what we could achieve (this season). We’re just a bunch of kids from local towns coming together. Everybody knows Mainland is a great football team and we keep establishing ourselves as championship caliber, every year.”
Of the three-year run of success Mainland is currently on, Smith said, “it took us a little bit, just getting the right people involved, getting the staff in place. We’ve been pretty good now. It takes talent to win and we’ve had some talent, but once you have a system in place and that kind of mentality, expectations and standards that we have in place — a lot of times that precedes the talent. Last year we beat some teams that were more talented, we just had a very good football team, and I think it was the same this year. We just stayed true to what we do.”
Smith said one of the keys to sustaining success is that the younger players want to be in the shoes of the older guys. They want to be playing for state championships, and they get an up-close look at what it takes to get there. These days, it’s an honor just to make the postseason practice squad at Mainland, Smith said. Not everybody does.
“That’s the culture that we have at Mainland, it’s a championship culture and you see it in the young kids. We had more than 30 freshmen on the team this year, and that’s the most we’ve had. We finished the season with 37 freshmen and right now our projections look the same, if not more, for next year’s freshman class. And our school enrollment is still going down. I think it’s the culture that we have right now. The kids want to be part of it,” he said. “They saw (the state championship) atmosphere and they want to be a part of it. They want to be on the practice squad (for the playoffs). We put that list up of who made it and there were a lot of disappointed kids, even knowing they weren’t going to play in another game, they want to be a part of those practices and be on the sidelines for those games.”
Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com
