Sports

A North Battle Brings Football Back to Howell

Patriots coming to town tonight for 7 p.m. contest

After a disappointing to Toms River North last Saturday night, the Howell Rebel football team will make its home debut with the opening kickoff set for 7 p.m. tonight. 

The Rebels will welcome their local rivals from Freehold Township to town tonight, with both teams looking for their first wins of the year. While the Rebels lost to the Mariners, a top 10 team in the Shore Conference, the Patriots lost 31-6 to Perth Amboy in a Greater Middlesex Conference crossover game. 

Coach Cory Davies said he is looking forward to seeing how the two schools match up on the field tonight. He called Freehold "a young team that has a lot of talent, but not a lot of experienced players." 

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Taking to the road last week, the Howell squad showed they can compete with the best schools in the conference and will have a chance to set the tone in the A North division tonight. Part of that effort will start with senior quarterback Ryan Davies who threw for nearly 300 yards last week and had two big touchdown passes while running in for a third. 

In their pass heavy offense, Davies found two favorite targets in the opener last week. The leading receiver was Nick Craig who averaged more than 10 yards for each of his five catches as part of a 60 yard day. Tony Robinson also proved to be a deep threat with 45 yards picked up on just three receptions.

Find out what's happening in Howellwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Davies will also look to stay out of the clutches of the Patriots defense after being roughed up by the Mariners less than a week ago. 

The Howell defense also came up big last week and will need to keep up that effort this week in order to hold the Patriots in check as they make their Shore Conference debut for the year. 

Coach Davies said he knew going into the game against North that his team would be in for a fight. "We played very well against them," he said. "Going into the game I knew it was going to be a very close match."

Even in the loss, the coach said the team was able to learn a lot about themselves going forward with the year. That included fine tuning their defensive efforts and overcoming injuries on the offensive line that gave some younger players a chance to see more significant playing time.

The coach also said it will be interesting to see how his team bounces back from such a close loss against a team they beat by several scores last year. The coach also said any time the Rebels have a chance to take on another Freehold Regional High School District makes it a bigger game for the squad.

Over the past three decades the Rebels and Patriots have had a back and forth series with both teams holding a decided advantage at one point or another. Coach Davies said even on years where their records have been lopsided, the games have been traditionally competitive. That includes many years of Thanksgiving Day competitions.

Even though it was only one week on the road, coach Davies said the team was also happy to be back on their home field for tonight's game.

Following this week, the Rebels will gear up for another key A North game against the visiting squad from Marlboro.


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