Goerge Starts New SBHS Football Era in Style

The South Brunswick High School football team didn't wait long to usher in the Joe Goerge era in style.

SBHS dominated from the outset on Friday, scoring touchdowns in each of the first two quarters before going on to a 34-0 win at East Brunswick.

"It really couldn't have gone much better than that," Goerge noted.

Even for a guy in his fourth decade of coaching, those first games are special.

"You get butterflies and you feel the excitement," Goerge said. "If you don't have that kind of feeling, you're probably ready to hang it up."

TJ Perkowski scored on a 12-yard run to start the scoring for South Brunswick. Perkowski also added the first score of the second quarter, running in for a touchown from 4 yards out. Perkowski also helped set up the offense by completing five of seven passes for 63 yards.

Dion Hooper also scored twice for South Brunswick. Hooper scored on a 6-yard run in the first quarter and from 34 yards away in the third quarter. Donte Strickland scored the other touchdown on a 10-yard run in the second quarter.

Hooper would lead South Brunswick with 65 yards. No one else would have more than 27 yards as South Brunswick beat East Brunswick with very much a team effort. A total of 11 different runners carried the ball for South Brunswick.

Goerge said the balanced attack aims to take advantage of the Vikings' many weapons.

"The way our offense is set up, you're going to get people touches," Goerge said. "It's a great position to be in when you can spread the ball around."

This became even more evident once South Brunswick built the big half time lead. Goerge was able to see what a lot of his players could do in a game.

South Brunswick also used a team effort to record the shutout on defense, South Brunswick limited East Brunswick to just 64 yards of total offense.

"We had a couple of blocked punts and a couple of turnovers," Goerge noted. "Our defense was putting us in such great field position, we didn't even have to drive the ball very far. A lot of times we started on their side of the field."

A total of 19 different South Brunswick players had at least one tackle. TJ Taylor (who also had three receptions for 37 yards on offense) led the way with 6.5 tackles, with Ken Drost close with six tackles, Brian Lee had five tackles, and Hooper and Nicholas Mecca had 3.5 tackles each.

After showing off its new product to great success on the road, the 2012 South Brunswick High team will host Monroe in the home opener on Sept 14 at 7 p.m.

"I'm really looking forward to it," Goerge said. "At my last positon, we didn't have lights. Friday nights are great. Nothing better than getting that fan support and playing at home."