Monroe-Woodbury blanks Kingston
Ellenville defeats Rondout Valley in eight-man contest
ACCORD, N.Y. >> There really wasn’t much Kingston High coach Quintin Johnson could tell his players after Monroe-Woodbury continued to dominate the series between the two Section 9 Class AA rivals with Saturday’s 28-0 shutout at Rondout Valley.
Week after week, Johnson tells the Tigers they must eliminate penalties and keep mistakes to a minimum if they want to win games. But it was the same old song on the rainy Senior Recognition Day as the Tigers dropped their sixth straight to fall to 0-3 in
Class AA and 1-6 overall. Kingston was flagged six times for 65 yards in penalties in the first half and on two occasions the penalties were instrumental in keeping two scoring drives going for the Crusaders, who continued their mastery over Kingston with their 22nd straight win in the series.
On Monroe-Woodbury’s first drive, it appeared as if the Crusaders would punt when faced with a fourth-and-9 at their own 37. But when Kingston was penalized five yards for an illegal substitution to make it a more manageable fourth-and-4, Crusaders running back Nate Coulanges ran for six yards to pick up the first down to keep the drive alive. Monroe-Woodbury ended up going 64 yards on 12 plays to take a 6-0 lead on a 1-yard TD run by Coulanges with 5:04 left in the first quarter.
With sophomore quarterback Jack Purvis starting again after sitting out one game due to an injury, the Tigers immediately embarked on a promising drive highlighted by a 16-yard run by senior running back Isaiah Thomas and a 29-yard sprint from junior back John Jones. But the drive stalled inside the Crusader 40 and Purvis punted the ball away.
On Kingston’s next drive, Jones
lost the ball on a fumble after a hard hit inside the Monroe-Woodbury 30. Kingston’s inability to capitalize on potential scoring drives continued in the second half when two drives fizzled in MonroeWoodbury territory.
“It’s the story of our season,” Johnson said. “We move the ball and then we just don’t finish the drive. I feel very few teams have stopped us from moving the ball. I looked up so many times today and I see we’re at second-and-5 and I say ‘great.’ And then we have a procedural penalty or we don’t possess the ball. And our fourthdown percentages aren’t very good.”
After Kingston’s second drive was stopped on Jones’ fumble, Monroe-Woodbury (4-0 Class AA, 5-1 overall) needed just seven plays to increase the lead to 13-0 on senior quarterback David Fennessy’s 11-yard touchdown pass to senior wide receiver Bryce Coulanges with 7:00 remaining in the second quarter.
Kingston was flagged for a roughing the passer penalty on the Crusaders’ next drive, which ended with Nate Coulanges scoring his second TD on an 11-yard run to make it 20-0 in the waning minutes of the second quarter. Nate Coulanges, who rushed for 190 yards on 23 carries, wrapped up the scoring on a 7-yard touchdown run straight up the middle to up the lead to 26-0 with 5:35 left in the third quarter.
When the Tigers jumped offsides on what would have been the extra-point kick, the Crusaders called on Coulanges to convert a 2-point conversion run for a 28-0 lead.
Thomas, who led the team in rushing with 72 yards on 12 carries and had an interception on defense, said the Tigers will be ready for archrival Newburgh Free Academy in Saturday’s 2 p.m. home finale at Rondout Valley. The Goldbacks have won 10 straight in the series that started in 1915. Newburgh now holds a 60-52-5 advantage.
“I assume we’ll go in on Monday, get good film, good study and get coached up,” Thomas said. “And then we’ll have a great week of practice. Great preparation Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and then Friday we’ll have a great pregame. There will be a lot of mental focus this week. We’ll be ready.”
Ellenville 40, Rondout Valley 34
At Ellenville, visiting Ganders quarterback Billy Brush threw two touchdown passes to Aiden Demorest and ran for two more TDs in the loss to the host Blue Devils in an eight-man football league game.
Gabe Schoonmaker had a 52-yard touchdown run for Rondout (3-4).
Ellenville improved to 3-3.
Ellenville hosts Tri-Valley on Friday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. Rondout Valley takes on Livingston Manor/ Roscoe on Saturday, Oct. 21, at 1 p.m. at Livingston Manor.