The Game At A Glance: St. Peter's Prep played well early and jumped out to a big lead, leading 23-6 after one quarter and 30-6 at the half, but was sloppy in the second half against a North Bergen team that didn't quit. Despite a North Bergen rally, St. Peter's Prep held on 44-26.

First Half Highlights: Prep moved the ball on the opening drive, scoring on nine plays, when QB Will Hill ran for a 5 yard score and a 7-0 lead in just over four minutes. A key play was Hill getting 5 yards on a fourth and inches from his own 44. RB Shariff Harris was getting yardage and Hill found Mike Lang for 20 yards and Joe Valenti for 13. On North Bergen's first drive, they faced a third and 13 on their 32, when QB Evan Rodriguez eluded the Prep pass rush and scampered 68 yards for a score. The two point conversion was unsuccessful and it was 7-6, Prep. Hill took the kickoff 30 yards to the Prep 48, giving Prep good field position. This time it took Prep five plays to score. Hill rolled out from the 1 for a score, which was set up on a 46 yard Hill to Lang pass down to the 4 yard line on third and 8. North Bergen was three and out on its next possession when the punt snap went out of the end zone for a safety and a 16-6 Prep lead. Prep's Naz Oliver returned the free kick for a 75 yard score and it was 23-6 prep with 2:07 left in the quarter. Prep drove to the 11 on its next possession, when Rodriguez returned an interception for an apparent touchdown, but a penalty brought the ball back to their own 15. Prep went fifteen plays on their fourth and final drive, with Hill scoring from the 1, with 18 seconds left in the half. Harris carried seven times on the drive for 44 yards.

Second Half Highlights: North Bergen had a third and 9 from its 39 yard line when Rodriguez took off for some yardage, pitched to Chris Macias on the option, and Macias went approximately 35 yards for the score. Rodriguez pitched again to Macias on the option for the two point conversion and it was 30-14. Macias recovered a Prep fumble three plays later on the Prep 44 and the Bruins scored in three plays, when Rodriguez found Emilio Morel in the end zone for a score and it was 30-20 with 6:28 left in the quarter. Prep scored late in the quarter to make it 37-20 when Hill found Valenti for a 27 yard touchdown, after connecting for 24 yards on the previous play. Thompson was getting carries in the fourth quarter, picking up 38 yards on a drive and a 1 yard score. North Bergen scored very late to make it 44-26.

Play Of The Game: In a losing cause, Evan Rodriguez made plays. I'll go with his 68 yard touchdown run. It looked like he was going to be sacked, but he evaded Prep's defenders and took off.

Game Balls: Hill gets one because he can hurt you on three sides of the ball: offense, defense, and special teams. He ran for two scores, had a good night passing, played good defense, and returned a kick for 30 yards.

Rodriguez was outstanding for North Bergen. I always thought he was good, but was never convinced he was great. Tonight he convinced me: he's a great football player.

On The Recruiting Trail: There were, at a minimum, 5 D1A prospects playing on the field in this game, not counting the talented underclassmen making their ways up the ranks for St. Peter's Prep. The St. Peter's Prep stars such as Will Hill (Jr.), Will Thompson, Ravi Pradanhang, and Shariff Harris had their moments. However, the team came out sloppy in the second half. In a losing cause, North Bergen's Evan Rodriguez stood tall. He made plays and confirmed what a great player he is. Without Rodriguez, this game gets very ugly.

Audibles:

"We self-destructed a little in the second half after looking real good in the first half. It's a Hudson County game. The people on the outside don't really understand it and I really don't care. When we play one another, there's a whole different dimension to the game. I don't care what people say, we won the football game and got some good things out of it, we put 44 points up. We're not happy, but we wouldn't have been happy if we won 44-0. We just go back to work and get better. We didn't expect anything less than this. I've been around long enough to know that you can't walk into this place (North Bergen) and expect to roll." - St. Peter's Prep head coach Rich Hansen

"We needed a game like this. Blowing people out 71-6 doesn't do any good for us. It sounds good, but we needed a game where we got smacked in the face and this will give us a wake up call. We have to take this game, learn, and turn these negatives to positives. We made a lot of mistakes, especially on reads. We made a lot of mistakes up front, a lot of missed tackles, a lot of over pursuing, a lot of little things, and they added up. Evan Rodriguez is a great player, but I over pursued and missed some tackles." - St. Peter's Prep LB/RB Will Thompson

"It was half and half. We were good and bad. We came out flat in the second half, but I told Will Thompson and the other captains, we've got pick this up, this is not us, this is not Prep. Then we picked it up." - St. Peter's Prep QB/DB Will Hill