By MARK TRIBLE

South Jersey Glory Days Senior Football Writer

On X @Mtrible

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP — Through the offseason, he worked tirelessly to rehabilitate his left knee’s torn ACL and MCL. So far this year, the upperclassmen made it on the field for his final high school campaign and has delivered with and interception and two fumbles returned for scores.

But the moment he’s dreamed of, the one that will be crystal clear in his mind forever, came here with about 100 seconds left to play and his team down, 36-32.

Washington Township’s Jyair Moore took a bubble pass on a quarterback run/pass option and moved left. Four Kingsway Dragon tackle attempts later, and Moore was up the seam, off to the races and into much larger fame than the night’s Homecoming King and Queen.

Moore’s 51-yard catch-and-run completed a comeback in which the Minutemen — ranked No. 2 in the South Jersey Football Frenzy Show Best 11 poll — erased a 12-point deficit in the final five minutes.

“It’s a dream, there’s nothing else I can say,” Moore said. “That was probably the greatest play of my life, ever.”

Friday night’s bout featured body blow after body blow. Eighth-ranked Kingsway jumped out in front 7-0 before Township (8-0, 3-0 West Jersey Football League Classic) scored 17 unanswered to go up by 10 late in the second quarter.

The Dragons got off the mat. They scored two touchdowns in the final 1:42 of the first half to take a 21-17 lead into intermission. As soon as the second half started, they picked up where they left off.

Mason Bryan took the kickoff 85 yards for a score to make it 29-17. Late in the third frame, Township trimmed the deficit to 29-24 on Colin Beeler’s 1-yard plunge.

The teams traded fruitless possessions before Kingsway (6-2, 2-1 WJFL Classic) seemingly landed the knockout blow when senior quarterback David Oravetz found Cole DeNick for a 49-yard touchdown pass. At 36-24 with 6:25 to play, some of the home fans headed for the exits.

It took 1 minute and 50 seconds for Cole Aquino to engineer an 80-yard drive that ended with three Beeler runs and that final deficit Moore sank his teeth into.

The fateful drive began at the Minutemen 35-yard line with 3:20 left.

“You’ve got to stay calm, cool, collected,” Aquino said. “You’ve got to just focus and worry about the play ahead.

“I’ve been in moments like these all my life, so being down those two scores — just trusting every one of these guys. It’s like second nature, to be honest.”

Beeler opened the drive with a run for two. Aquino hit Paris Pratt for two more. On third down, Darion Joyner caught a short pass on the outside and reversed across the field to somehow muster five yards. Aquino snuck for the first down on 4th.

Then, the big play.

“I told (Aquino), ‘Throw me the ball and I’m going to make a play, I promise you,” Moore recalled. “That was it.”

Joyner and Moore’s ability to create proved vital on the final drive.

“I’m a big believer in Jimmies and Joes and not X’s and O’s,” Township coach Mike Schatzman joked afterward. “That’s the reality.

“People ask me all the time, ‘You do this, you did this,’ and it’s no — we have better players, guys. It’s good to have really good players and guys that are really good with the ball in their hands.”

None more so on this night than Moore. His heroics took away what could have been a signature win for Kingsway.

“Rothman (Orthopedics) said it was one of the worst surgeries they’d had as far as what the knee looked like,” Schatzman said. “He was in the weight room every single day, rehab three days a week, he got back in eight months.

“… We didn’t know what we were going to get out of him, you just don’t know how kids will respond to that kind of injury … To see a kid like that who’s battled back and battled through some adversity and has been limited as far as the amount of touches that he’s had, to have that is awesome.”

As he no doubt thought back to the pain, anguish and work that went into his recovery, Moore detailed it to the throng of reporters.

He’d made a memory for this team to cap the second of two championship-level drives. His sprint to the end zone saved Homecoming and kept the Minutemen unbeaten.

“I’ve been working and waiting for this moment, I’ve been working since I got hurt in that Williamstown game, I’ve been working all year,” he said. “This is what I waited for.”

Mark Trible is the host of the South Jersey Football Frenzy Show. You can check it out every Wednesday at 7 p.m. at facebook.com/sjglorydays. The show features highlights, analysis, rankings and more from high school football games throughout South Jersey.