WOODSTOWN – For the first two weeks of the season much of the love being thrown at the Schalick football team has been directed towards the offense. The defense hadn’t been playing badly. Quite the contrary. It’s just been overshadowed by some of the prodigious offensive numbers.
Make room for the defense, boys. Coming through.
The defense has been good all year, but it was at its best Friday night. Going back to the defense they played against Maple Shade in the season-opener, the Cougars held Woodstown to less than 100 net yards and nowhere close to the end zone in a 41-0 win. It was their first shutout since 2024, a year they had three and came within a safety of a fourth.
“The kids deserve all the credit in the world,” Cougars coach Kevin Leamy said. “They had a gameplan and it wasn’t overly complicated, they just executed. They were relentless. They gang tackled. There were 11 hats to the ball. It was phenomenal team defense.
“I think we’ve been playing (good) defense all year. I think we’re just starting to stay more focused. Last week we had a shutout until 40 seconds left; we just took a play off at the end of the game. These kids weren’t taking any plays off tonight.”
The Cougars’ defense has given up only 12 points all season and has scored 12 points themselves, including Gage Brown-Smith’s fumble recovery in the end zone on the last play of the third quarter here, so their plus-minus for the year is a net zero.
Through three games they’ve allowed only 307 total yards. And the two touchdowns they did give up, both were bolts from the blue. Linebacker Nick Lopergolo called them “spoofs … should’ve never happened.” One came on a 39-yard pass with two missed tackles three plays into the season and the other came on an 80-yard mistake with 40 seconds left in their second game.
“No matter how much attention we get we know that our defense is the best part of our team,” linebacker Ayden Jenkins said. “it has the most chemistry and Leamy puts us in the best possible position every single week. I don’t think any team is going to really be able to hang with us just because they’re not going to be able to score.”
Woodstown never got close. The Cougars limited their hosts to just two first downs and for as much as the Wolverines worked Cole Ware they had only 52 yards rushing. Their biggest play of the night was a 15-yard gain by Ware in the second quarter. They only ran seven plays in Schalick territory and one of those was a fourth-and-1 stopped cold by Evan Elliott.
“We just didn’t get the job tonight,” Woodstown coach Frank Trautz said. “We flat out just did not get the job done. It was just one of those nights. I did not expect it to go like this tonight.”
“Our defense plays so intense,” Lopergolo said. “We just fire off the ball. It’s 100 percent full throttle every single play, and we have kids behind us who play with the same intensity. That’s what really helps our defense, knowing that whoever’s in we can trust.”
Schalick’s offense, however, did its usual thing. The Cougars scored on their first two possessions with David Stewart opening the scoring with a 5-yard touchdown run and Kenny Bartee scoring from the 2 after Stewart returned an interception inside the 5.
The Cougars have started each of their first two games with a interesting first play and they sort of did this week with a reverse on their first play from scrimmage. But they saved the real razzle-dazzle for the last play of the half when Jenkins threw a 23-yard halfback pass to Gio Alicea to make it 21-0.
“We’ve run that play for the last couple years,” Jenkins said. “We ran it against Glassboro last year; it worked pretty well. It was just a perfect time to run that play.”
“The kids just like having that element of old-fashioned back-yard football,” Leamy said. “Just have something up your sleeve that’s fun that they can practice during the week. Like I said last week, we’re going to be aggressive if the opportunity presents itself.”
The end of the half marked the end of the night for Bartee. He was lifted for purely precautionary reasons after aggravating a couple parts of his body in the first half.
The Cougars added three touchdowns in the third quarter – a 3-yard run by Jenkins, a 7-yard pass from Gary Simonini to Elliott that put the game in running clock mode, and Gage-Brown’s fumble recovery in the end zone after Elliott dislodged the ball from Woodstown quarterback Mason Middlemiss.
SCHAL (41) WOODS (0) 12 First Downs 2 32-225 Rushing 25-52 5-10-0 Passes 1-5-1 61 Passing Yards 4 0-0 Fumbles-Lost 1-1 2-40.0 Punts-Avg. 4-37.3 7-55 Penalties-Yards 9-68 Schalick 14 7 20 0- 41 Woodstown 0 0 0 0- 0
SCORING SUMMARY
S-David Stewart 5 run (Shawn Kelly kick), 6:13 1Q
S-Kenny Bartee 2 run (Shawn Kelly kick), 3:05 1Q
S-Gio Alicea 23 pass from Ayden Jenkins (Shawn Kelly kick), 0:03 2Q
S-Ayden Jenkins 3 run (Shawn Kelly kick), 9:20 3Q
S-Evan Elliott 7 pass from Gary Simonini (Shawn Kelly kick), 4:39 3Q
S-Gage Brown-Smith fumble recovery in end zone (kick blocked), 0:00 3Q