West Deptford Football Blasts Paulsboro, Set For Haddonfield

Any worries that the football team would look ahead to its South Jersey final against Haddonfield next week and let a winnable game against Colonial Conference rival Paulsboro go by never even had a chance of developing Saturday afternoon.

Gerald Towns and the West Deptford offense made sure of that.

Towns built on his breakout season with three touchdowns in the first quarter to lead the Eagles to a 40-14 win in Paulsboro in the 31st annual Thanksgiving rivalry game.

Towns finished with 150 yards rushing, but it was his passing that raised a few eyebrows. Towns hit Tom Jakubowski on passes of 35 and 51 yards. Each pass was a little underthrown, preventing touchdowns, but they were certainly executed well enough to catch the attention of the five Haddonfield coaches and dozen or so players in attendance.

“It’s fun throwing the ball,” Towns said. “Me and Tommy always talk about it and say, ‘Man, I wish we could have run it this week.' This week we ran it twice, so I was happy.”

His teammates were also happy.

“It’s ridiculous,” senior lineman Jamil Pollard said with a grin. “In practice, he was throwing tight spirals. I guess he was just not trying to overthrow the receivers. Him throwing that well surprised us all. My jaw dropped.”

Jakubowski finishd with three catches for 115 yards.

The 40 points produced by the Eagles leaves them just 15 away from tying the South Jersey record for points in the season. Not to be outdone, the defense continued its stellar play with six sacks.

Scott Dennis led the charge with 1 ½ sacks, and also had a blocked punt in the first quarter that set up a Towns one-yard touchdown run. Fellow lineman Todd Jarrell, who also spent a lot of the day in the Paulsboro backfield, raved about the play of Dennis and the defense as a whole.

“He’s a warrior, that’s the best way to describe Dennis,” said Jarrell. “He’s not the biggest guy in stature, but he has the biggest heart for sure.”

Once the Eagles built a lead, the West Deptford linemen were able to pin their ears back and go after the quarterback, knowing the Red Raiders would have to throw.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Towns said. “We work hard in practice and it shows.”

“It makes us unstoppable,” Pollard said of the defensive pressure. "It fuels our offense. It just drives our defense even more.”

Josh Cornelius added a touchdown run in the second quarter, but Paulsboro’s Dimere Turner responded with a 25-yard touchdown run to bring the game to 27-7 at the half.

The Eagles put the game away in the second half when Jake Hannan hit T.J. Harcum for a touchdown and Arrin Bundy added a 2-yard touchdown run.

“Our kids did what they had to do in the first quarter to set the tempo and the stage for a pretty good game,” West Deptford head coach Clyde Folsom said.

Folsom said the most important thing about Saturday’s game was to make sure the team was playing its best heading into next week’s South Jersey, Group 2 championship showdown with the Bulldawgs.

“For us today, we needed to come in and play a perfect football game in preparation for next week,” Folsom said. “We had to play, one to beat Paulsboro, and two, to take a step forward and play an outstanding Haddonfield team."

Pollard said motivation was never an issue.

“We fought for our pride today,” said Pollard. “We beat them last year at home, but that was more like their JV squad. We needed to come in here and when we got up, stay up and finish. We didn’t do it in past years, but we did this year. I’m proud of the whole West Deptford team.”

And now, after weeks of wanting to focus solely on the Bulldawgs, the Eagles finally can.

“Coach (Folsom) emphasized what we do today, how we play today will determine how we do next week,” Jarrell said. "I feel like we came out firing on all cylinders today. It was awesome. I feel like we had a tremendous amount of fun today and, we are really looking forward to next week. We tried not to think too much this week about next week, but now it’s all focused on next week.”