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Sports

Florence Blanks Shore, Knocks Team From Playoffs

Blue Devils attempt at second consecutive Central Jersey Group I championship falls short.

Florence Twp. – Shore Regional’s bid to win back-to-back Central Jersey Group I titles came to end on Saturday as it lost to Florence, 23-0, in the in the NJSIAA sectional playoffs.

Down 7-0 at halftime, the Flashes (8-1) limited the Blue Devils to just two yards of total offense and one first down in the second half to advance to the Central Jersey Group I semifinals where they will now face Dunellen on Nov. 18.

After Shore’s first possession, which was its longest drive of the afternoon (7 plays, 39 yards), resulted in an interception by senior quarterback Brendan Dula, Florence then finished off a 18-play, 80-yard opening drive with a 4-yard touchdown run by sophomore running back Curtis Thompson to take an early 7-0 lead.

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On the following possession, the Blue Devils (6-3) had their best scoring opportunity erased when a Dula had a 45-yard touchdown run was called back after a holding penalty. Shore would be forced to punt one play later.

The Flashes would then go on to score on their first three possessions of the second half (a 51-yard run by quarterback D’Andre Davis, 30-yard field goal by Dakota Benish and a 25-yard by Jordan Stockton) to put away the Blue Devils.

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Thompson (14-51), Stockton (14-90), Davis (5-65) and sophomore running back Jazmir Best (10-54) combined for 260 rushing yards for Florence.

Junior running back Jack Kelly, 26 yards on 3 carries, paced a Shore running attack that could only muster 48 yards against the Flashes’ stout defense. Dula was 3-for-11 passing for 28 yards.

“At times this year when we’ve had trouble stopping people (other offenses) we would just adjust and do a few things differently,” Head Coach Mark Costantino said. “But today we just gave up too many big plays. We had our opportunities, but we failed to take advantage of them and because of that we made it easy for them. But they are a good team and they outplayed us. We just didn’t get it done today.”

On Nov. 23 at 7 p.m. the Blue Devils will host Point Pleasant Beach in what will be the final game of their season. Point Beach, who also qualified for the Central Jersey Group I sectionals, , on Nov. 11.

Albeit disappointed that his team fall short of its ultimate goal, Costantino still believes that the season “so far” has been an overall success.

“We have a good bunch of kids and they really worked hard all season,” Costantino said. “We had our backs up against the wall and we had to win our last four games to get into the playoffs and we did. They showed great resiliency.  We have our Thanksgiving game against Point Beach in a few weeks so we’ll see how that goes.”

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