Football: Bernards Rallies Past Summit, 29-22, to Stay Undefeated

BERNARDSVILLE, NJ -- Terrence Hanratty's 5-yard touchdown run with 55 seconds left gave undefeated Bernards a 29-22 come-from-behind victory over Summit on the first cold night of the football season on Thursday at Olcott Field.

The Mountaineers (7-0) rallied from deficits of 15-7 and 22-21 to come away with the victory over a good Summit team (4-2) that came in with an uptempo, no-huddle offense that gives many defenses fits.

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But, down the stretch, it was the visiting Hilltoppers who looked like they might have been a bit gassed, as Bernards embarked on its game-winning nine-play, 65-yard drive that started after Summit had taken a 22-21 lead with 4:06 to go on Gavin Schnall's 5-yard touchdown run and Sam Morris' extra point.

The Mountaineers took over on their own 35 after the kickoff and advanced immediately into Summit territory on Nolan Walsh's screen pass to Logan Stevens for 18 yards. From there, it was steady gains with sure blocking at the point of attack for Bernards. Hanratty had 18 yards on three carries on the drive, picking up a first down on third and one from the 6, and then battering his way the remaining 5 yards on the next carry to give Bernards a 27-22 lead before Patrick Carlisle ran for the two-point conversion and the seven-point lead.

“We were down by a touchdown here in the (sectional) championship game late in the game last year (against Pompton Lakes) and we scored on that drive, so we'd been here before,” said Hanratty, a senior fullback. “We ran that counter play and were able to run it down their throat because the offensive line's blocking on those runs was amazing. Our guards, Finn Osborne and Grayson Meyer, deserve a lot of credit with their blocking for how we were able to run the ball.”

Summit appeared to have Bernards' usually staunch defense on its heels in the early going, taking an 8-0 lead on a 9-yard TD pass from Cole Sabol to Oscar Marx on the third play of the second quarter followed by Sabol's two-point conversion run.

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“Summit is a great football program. They're sort of like our bigger brothers, and I knew they came into this game a little banged up,” Bernards head coach Jon Simoneau said. “Our scout offense did a great job this week of replicating Summit's (no-huddle) offense as well as they could. Our offensive line really got us ready to go in practice this week. We won that game between Monday and Wednesday this week, and I thought Summit looked a little tired at the end of the game. We do more two-platooning than they do.”

The first of two fumble recoveries by Hanratty on defense gave Bernards the ball on Summit's 20-yard line with 2:28 left in the second quarter. Logan Stevens carried three times for all 20 yards, scoring on a 4-yard run around the left side with 1:31 to go followed by Noah Ochab's PAT that brought Bernards within one, 8-7, going into halftime.

Summit opened a 15-7 lead after a 3-yard TD run by Ethan Lawton and an extra point by Morris with 7:09 left in the third quarter. Hanratty's second fumble recovery of the night touched off a flurry of action. He recovered a Summit fumble on the Bernards 41-yard line with 4:00 left in the third quarter.

On the next play after the turnover, Walsh executed a play fake, feinting a toss to Carlisle in the backfield that froze the defense and allowed wideout Jack Morra to get wide open deep downfield for a 59-yard TD pass from Walsh with 3:43 left in the third period. Ochab kicked the PAT to make it a one-point game, 15-14, Summit.

But on Summit's first play after the kickoff, Bernards lineman Chase Caponigro recovered a fumble on an errant snap to give the Mountaineers the ball on the Summit 16. Two plays later, Walsh threw another TD pass to Morra, an 8-yard strike that Morra grabbed at the right pylon with 2:53 left in the third, with Ochab's PAT giving Bernards a 21-15 lead.

Walsh completed 11 of 19 passes for 211 yards for Bernards. The sophomore is in his first year starting for the Mountaineers and he hasn't lost yet.

“I feel like Nolan Walsh aged five years from the beginning of this game 'til the end,” Simoneau said.

“He plays with confidence, he is not afraid to run the ball, he puts his passes in the perfect spot and he's sure of himself in the pocket,” Hanratty said of Walsh.

Stevens rushed for 78 yards on 13 carries for Bernards.

Another standout on the Mountaineers' defense was junior end Thomas Diemar, who had two sacks, a tackle for loss and a QB pressure. Diemar, unofficially, has 16 career sacks, a new school record.

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