Football: Scotch Plains-Fanwood Battles to the End Against Monroe, Comes up Just Short in Home Opener

SCOTCH PLAINS/FANWOOD, NJ -- Things were looking rather bleak for the Raiders at half-time of their home opener on Thursday, Aug. 29, at Tyson Field in Scotch Plains. The home team was down 28-16 and had just lost their starting quarterback, Jacob Handy, to injury in the first half.

They started the second half with a possession inside their own 5-yard line and punted. Monroe put up a field goal to extend the lead to 31-16. But the Raiders bounced back and narrowed the lead to just one touchdown on a brilliant run by Jaden Richards and a two-point conversion. They used their ground game to score another touchdown in the fourth quarter and came very close to making another conversion that would have given the team a one-point lead.

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Under new head coach Shawn Johnson, you won't find any quitting. The Raiders battled back, held their opponents to just three second-half points, and came inches shy of finding the end zone on a two-point conversion late in the game that would have given them a lead with just minutes to play.

What did you tell his team at halftime that inspired them to come back and nearly win the game?

"First of all, I told them that the game is not over. I said, 'We have a lot of football left to play.' I told them that they made a lot of mistakes that we had to overcome in the first half, and if we minimize those mistakes, we have a chance to get back in this football game," Johnson told TAPintoSPF after the game.

"And that's basically what we did, Coach Fletch, my offense coordinator, found something that worked and stuck with it. The defensive coordinator made some adjustments at halftime to try to slow down some of their screen passes and other things that they were doing. That also worked," Johnson said.

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"We just tried to make some adjustments, keep the kids' spirits up, and allow them to believe that they can come back and win this football game," he added. "We basically came two inches away from winning this game. The other team made a great play."

Johnson was proud that his team didn't give up. They fought through adversity.

"Everybody in this stadium tonight, recognizes that these kids played hard and didn't hang their heads and give up," Johnson said. "That's probably something they would have done in the past, but tonight they showed some resilience, and they never let the score dictate how they played out here."

The Raiders next play on Friday, Sept. 6, at Rahway.

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