By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher Everything that could go wrong did in the first half of the Egg Harbor Township football team’s season opener against Atlantic City. The Eagles were down 6-0 after less than 15 seconds had gone by after Atlantic City’s Idryis Muhammad — a former EHT Eagle, no less — took the opening kickoff back 85 yards for a touchdown. The big opening night crowd sat there, collectively dumbfounded, mouths agape. Another Atlantic City touchdown and 2-point conversion stretched the lead to 14-0 before the Eagles got their bearings and answered with a 37-yard touchdown pass from David Rice to Dante Moore. But things got ugly again, as the Vikings built up a 27-7 lead. The final score of the half came as Egg Harbor Township was driving to possibly make it a one possession game. They were inside the red zone, and a score would have cut the deficit to just six points. Instead, a few seconds later they trailed by 20, as Muhammad picked off a pass that had deflected off Moore’s hands at the 3-yard line, and took it 97 yards up the right sideline for a touchdown just before halftime. The Eagles went into the locker room trailing 27-7, and fans were wondering if that first half was an indication of a long, painful season ahead. Eagles head coach Kevin Stetser could have gone into the locker room, knocked over some water coolers, slammed some doors, ripped into his team. He didn’t do any of that. Instead, he let his senior leaders take command to rally the troops. 
EHT’s Dante Moore rushes for one of the touchdowns that helped the Eagles erase a 20-point deficit in their season-opening win over Atlantic City. Moore’s touchdown run made it 27-14, and after Spencer LaSure took a punt back 85 yards for a score to cut the deficit to 27-20, Rice found Amon Rolls for a 30-yard TD strike that tied the game at 27-27. Suddenly, that mountain it looked like EHT had to climb at halftime was looking more like a mole hill. LaSure caught a 47-yard touchdown pass from Rice in the fourth quarter, and a bruising 16-yard scoring run from fullback Connor Agostino gave EHT a 41-27 lead. “We figured if we stayed the course and stayed with our game plan, we felt like we could continue to move the ball. We needed to punch it in a few times, and the bottom line is we have some playmakers who made plays,” Stetser said. “Dante and Spencer and David, defensviely Dietrich (Trumbauer) was just bringing it and his physical style of play made a difference.” It was a devastating loss for Atlantic City, but for the Eagles it proved the power of positive thinking and showed the development of their senior leaders. I was talking with Stetser in the preseason and he was telling me how proud he was of guys such as Moore and LaSure — not for how they have developed into two of the top playmakers in the Cape-Atlantic League, but for how they are developing as young men and leaders of the team. Sometimes, the best thing a coach can do is not say anything. When Stetser walked into the locker room at halftime with his team facing a 20-point deficit, he chose to sit back and let his team figure out where they needed to find the resolve to come back from that. Like he said, he wants his players to own what they do and how they want people to view their football program. He probably wasn’t expecting to have a moment like that at halftime of the season opener, but that second-half comeback may end up being a defining moment for this football team. “I’m not a yeller and a screamer. I wasn’t as a player. There’s a certain amount of that you need in football, but what was I going to do? Go in there and tell them to play harder? They were already playing hard. What was I going to tell them, to hustle more? On the opening kickoff we hustled a little bit too much,” Stetser said. “And the other thing is, you have a group of teenagers in there who are pouring their hearts out for you and they’ve been pouring their hearts out since June. So to go in and berate them, to me, that wasn’t what this team needed.” What the team needed was for its experienced players to stare the adversity right in the face and say, “you’re not going to get the best of me this time.” And that’s a lesson that will keep paying dividends for these boys long after the Friday night lights have faded into the past. Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]
Commentary: Why giving up is never a good idea in high school sports
