Friday 10/31/08 7:00pm @Burlington Township                                                             Flashes 24                    Falcons 6

Mighty Flashes use "Mean" tricks to unleash "Red" attack and treat Falcons to a Halloween loss

After a first half of normal Flashes football (Marcus "Flash" Rawls left, right and up the middle), super coach Joe "Frapp" Frappolli dipped into his halloween bag of tricks and treated the Burlington Township Falcons (who were 5-2 and in third place in the CJ-2 power point rankings) to a dose of Korey "Red" Linico and Mike "Mr Mean" Staton power running. Marcus "Flash" Rawls is Florence's long gain runner, everyone expects him to break the big one and he did. "Flash" got the offense going with a 59 yard sprint around right end and capped it off with an 8 yard touchdown run as he racked up 127 yards and two touchdowns in 24 attenpts. Most of that however came in the first half. In the second half, "Red" became the deep threat as he took the first snap of the third quarter 68 yards in route to amassing 131 yards on just 6 carries. Mike "Mr Mean" Staton and Jake "Bulldog" Foehr" contributed 57 more yards from the fullback position (188 yards total) as the "Mighty Flashes piled up 326 total rushing yards. The "Trick" as it were, did not involve any trick plays, it was simply a switch from blocking for the half back to blocking for the full back. And, although the passing game was not as successful as the previous two games the use of it still help open up the Falcons defense and prevented them from putting eight and nine men in the box.

	The big "Red" Machine:  Korey "Red" Linico breaks loose for a 68 yard gain Korey said of his 131 yards rushing after gaining only 10 yards in the previous game: "I don't even know what was wrong with me the last couple of weeks, I wasn't feeling it. I don't even know what to say about that. No need to say anything "Red", action speaks louder than words. Kudos to the "O" line, what a great job. Korey also scored on a 4yard pass reception from QB Jimmy "Snake Charmer" Martinson who also completed a crutial pass to Steve "Not 2 Puny" Muni that set up another Flashes score.
	Just plain "Meaning" full Fullback Mike "Mr Mean" Staton finishes off scoring drive with a 7 yard run. Mike didn't run up big numbers in the stats column, but he played an important part in the run game as the lead blocker on most of the "Mighty Flashes" big gain running plays. Said Mike: "It started out a little hard because they were packing people in the box, but the coach started using the fullbacks more which I'm greatful for, because I love getting the ball. And overall, we just blocked great". Kudos to Jake "Bulldog" Foehr who came up from the JV squad to provide some great play from both the fullback and middle linebacker spots, we forsee great things coming from Jake in the future seasons.

Mighty Mighty "D"- FENCE! The "Mighty Flashes" were just one play away from posting their first shutout of the season, the Falcons scored on the last play of the game to avoid the bagle. The score came on a 77 yard pass play and represented alomst one third of the Falcons total offense. The Flashes defense sacked the Falcons quarterback three times, had 12 tackles for losses and two fumbles one of which stopped a sure touchdown. The Falcons totaled 67 rushing yards on 28 running plays and 141 yards through the air (77 of which came on the last play of the game). Led by James "Big Jim" Narkun, Kevin "Special Kay" Jiras, Ian "Groovy" Groover and Mike "Mr.Mean" Staton, the "D" made big play after big play and swarmed to the ball like fles to sugar cube spoiling every attenpt the Falcons offense made at getting back into the game. Earnest "Lil-E" Curry, Zack "Attack" Carugno, Marcus "Flash" Rawls and Dylan "Bean" Martin were all over the Falcon recievers, Chucky "Cheese" Taylor, Clint "Rocky" Rockhill and Bryan "Lil Big Cat" Watts kept the pressure on Falcons QB Justin Barner, forcing numerous hurried incompletions. the entire defense did a great job of executing defensive coachs Nicky Lubrano and Peppi Pichette's game plan and techniques. The Falcons first seven third down plays produced four incompleted passes, a sack, a completed pass for a two yard loss and a run attempt for a two yard loss.

Spilt Milk (I'm not crying over it): There's an article in the Burlington County Times about whether a player who is told to move by an official is moving when the ball is snapped causes a penalty. This question was supposedly put to an official "a few weeks ago", now, a few weeks later (when it involves a touchdown being called back in the Township game) the writer brings it to light. The official (supposedly) said no it is not a penalty. The writer points out that even though it probably would not have changed the out come of the game, "what's bad is that there hasn't been some kind of discussion about this in official circles". The writer goes on to point out that this situation came up in the Florence - Township game and "it would have given Township a 7-0 lead".  Well if he brought the question up "a few weeks ago", why didn't he write about it then? Perhaps they may have talked about it in the "officials circle". Maybe, if it was brought up by a media person (rather than a coach or fan) it would have gotten some attention. I was photographing the Freshman game on Thursday when the exact same thing happened, Coach J J Frappolli said the same thing (told the official "you told him to move up) when his reciever was flagged for moving. Funny how people are always calling us the cry babies yet bring up everything that goes in our favor. How many holding calls did we get in the New Egypt game as opposed to the fact that New Egypt was called for just one penalty the entire game. Nothing was written about that.

How about that: The Holy Cross football team has a new head coach. He replaces the one who was hired two years ago when Florence was placed on their schedule with an unbeaten record. We lost the first game and he was retained, we won the second and now he's gone. Did he retire, or was he fired? Hmmmm