By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
LINWOOD — The Seneca Golden Eagles knew they had to stop Mainland Regional senior running back Rocco DeBiaso to have any chance of winning the South Jersey Group 3 championship. But, most times, knowing you have to stop DeBiaso and actually doing so are two vastly different things.
The Golden Eagles must have thought they were seeing double on Friday night, too, as Rocco combined with younger brother Lucas to rush for 234 yards and four touchdowns as Mainland — the defending Group 4 state champion — cruised to a 42-14 victory to win the a title in its new section. The Stangs will head to Central Jersey champion Somerville, a 24-6 winner over Delsea, next Friday night in the state semifinal. The winner of that game plays for a state championship at Rutgers in early December.
“Our team has been getting better every week since the start of the season. In the playoffs, we’ve seemed to really click and succeed,” Rocco DeBiaso said. “My coaches keep believing in me, keep giving me the ball and great things are happening because the O-line is blocking very well.”
The Bunting Family Pharmacy Marquee Matchup had the looks of a great game early on, as Mainland scored on a Rocco DeBiaso 18-yard run on the Stangs’ first possession, but Seneca answered right away. Facing a 4 th-and-6 at the Mainland 29-yard line, quarterback Anthony Tirico hooked up with Nate Sauerwald. The sophomore receiver turned upfield, broke a tackle and was gone for a touchdown and a 7-7 tie game.
But after a couple of punts, the host Stangs got the running game going, and ripped off three touchdowns to take a commanding 28-7 lead into halftime. Quarterback John Franchini took advantage of Seneca selling out to stop the run by connecting with Dylan Granzow for a 39-yard touchdown pass and a 14-7 Stangs lead.
Later in the second quarter, Mainland had a short field and head coach Chuck Smith decided to keep feeding the ball to Rocco DeBiaso. He carried the ball for all 35 yards of the drive, capping it off with a 1-yard plunge to make it 21-7 five minutes before halftime.
“They are tough kids and we’re lucky to have both of them, and Lucas for another two years,” Smith said of the DeBiaso brothers.
Franchini threw another touchdown pass before halftime, hooking up with Lucas DeBiaso for an 8-yard scoring strike. Rocco DeBiaso had more than 100 of his 184 yards before halftime, and for the game his younger brother chipped in 50 yards, a rushing touchdown and a receiving score.
“The last four weeks we’ve really been trying to establish the running game. We’ve been struggling with that all year, but we’ve been working a lot with the O-line and the running backs. Being able to run the ball more has been helping us a lot, and when we do that we’re able to sneak passes in,” said center Ethan Shock. “It’s always fun to be able to run it through the other team’s face. I want all the smoke, that’s all I have to say. We had a lot of confidence coming into this game. We new it was going to be a dogfight up front because of their size.”
“Our offensive line loves to pound the football, and that just helps out our overall system on offense. Then we can hit those timely passes,” coach Smith explained. “When you have a quarterback who can throw — and John is a very good high school quarterback — when teams want to gang up (at the line) to try to take the run away, we have that ability to pull the ball and then throw it downfield, and that keeps teams on their heels a little bit.”
Mainland’s lead swelled to 35-7 on its second possession of the third quarter as Lucas DeBiaso ripped off a 27-yard touchdown run around the right side.
“It feels great. I think coming into this season a lot of people underestimated us because of the players we lost (from last year), but we’re a family here, and families are always able to overcome adversity,” Shock said.
“We were a little bit overlooked, but the No. 1 thing is we played at home, and there is no better feeling than playing here, at the Corral, in front of our community, in front of our fans — it’s just an amazing feeling,” Rocco DeBiaso added.
Mainland isn’t perfect, like it was last year when the team went 14-0. The Stangs were just 5-3 after a 47-24 loss against Winslow in mid-October. But since then they’ve gone 4-0 and none of those teams have scored more than 14 points against the Stangs.
“We had a very tough schedule and we graduated a lot of guys, so I think a lot of people looked past us,” Smith said. “We have a very talented junior group and it was their turn this year. We fought through a lot of injuries this year and played a tough schedule with a lot of great football teams, and we were able to get healthy at the right time. And we stayed true to our system. We didn’t panic or anything, we just stayed true to what we believe in, and we’ve been able to roll off three wins here in the playoffs.
“This is our standard. This is where we always want to be.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Mainland at Somerville on Nov. 22 in the Group 3 state semifinal, time TBD.
Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com
