Taking care of business: Delsea finishes job on return trip to state title game

PISCATAWAY – The Delsea Regional High School team arrived here last year believing it was the best Group 3 team in the Garden State.

On Sunday's return trip, the Crusaders proved it.

After a long, storied history that included 16 sectional titles, Delsea captured it first state championship with a 28-3 victory over West Essex in the Group 3 title game at Rutgers University’s SHI Stadium.

“Before the game, we had our defensive meeting in the gym, Coach (Tom) Maxwell said something that really made sense to me: ‘That team is happy to be here, we planned to be here,'” senior Wayne Adair said.

“This was a business trip and we took care of business.”

Minus the suits and ties, the Crusaders (12-1) handled business in their usual fashion: punishing the opponent with a relentless ground attack. Delsea ran the football for 345 yards against West Essex (10-4), and finished the season with a whopping 4,131 rushing yards.

Adair rushed for a team-high 134 yards while junior Dan Russo added 127 yards and two touchdowns, giving him 26 TDs for the season.

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What wasn’t the same was the approach that Delsea took to the big game.

“A lot was different,” senior quarterback Zach Maxwell said. “In fact, we were trying to do the exact opposite of what we did last year when we came in here thinking it was going to be easy to win. A state title is never going to be easy.”

Delsea head coach Sal Marchese, whose 249^th career win produced the program’s first state title, said last year’s experience played a big role in the different outcome.

“They weren’t as wide-eyed (this time),” he said. “They were much more focused and played with less anxiety.”

Adair agreed.

“The whole atmosphere of being in a big stadium and coming through the tunnel, we just were focused as we should have been last year,” he said. “We were definitely the better team, but we didn’t get it done. (Sunday), we got it done.”

Defense wins championships

Delsea’s defense certainly was prepared for West Essex’s Wing-T offense. The Crusaders held their opponent to 22 yards rushing on 32 carries (0.7 ypc).

“We had a good plan, we’ve been running it for 31 years, we know how to defend it,” Marchese said. “We did a great job as I knew we would.”

Junior defensive end Jonathan Harris racked up 6.5 tackles, five for loss, and two sacks while junior linebacker Alex Grippo had six tackles and a sack.

“Coach always says we’re a machine,” Grippo said. “When every part is working as one, we’re not going to be beaten.”

The low-key Marchese picked up the vibe when talking about the growth of his team over the last four months.

“We really improved (throughout) the year,” he said. “Beginning of the year, we had a lot of growing to do, leadership-wise, tough-wise. We put a premium on getting tougher, practicing the right way and it paid off.”

Part of the improvement came from Harris and Russo, two players who transferred into the program from Bridgeton and Vineland, respectively. Few terrorized opposing offenses more than Harris, who finished with 12 sacks, while Russo developed into one of the region’s best two-way players with his bruising style at fullback and linebacker.

“It’s not an easy place to come into culture-wise,” Marchese said. “Kids have to be committed to a year-round process. They adapted to it, and they are both great character kids.”

After a lackluster first half resulted in a slim 6-3 lead at halftime, Delsea scored on is first three possessions of the second half to pull away for the victory and title. Adair, Maxwell and Russo had rushing TDs in the second half.

“Great teams always come back from adversity,” Russo said. “We were up, but it didn’t feel like it. We just got back to what we do best and executed (in the second half)."

Tom McGurk is a regional sports reporter for the Courier-Post, The Daily Journal and Burlington County Times, covering South Jersey sports for over 30 years. If you have a sports story that needs to be told, contact him at (856) 486-2420 or email tmcgurk@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @McGurkSports. Help support local journalism with a digital subscription.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Delsea football knocks off West Essex to claim state Group 3 title