FOOTBALL

South Jersey football: Woodrow Wilson celebrates first championship since 2001

Josh Friedman
The Courier-Post
Woodrow Wilson players and coaches celebrate after capturing the South Jersey Group final, defeating Burlington Township 22-14 at Burlington Township High School, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018.

BURLINGTON TWP. – Shaun Arline clung to the patch of turf like it was a gold brick.

Arline, the offensive coordinator for the Woodrow Wilson High School football team, has been collecting tufts of grass and dirt for the past three years – trophies of the Tigers’ road wins.

He got the idea from Florida State, which has a sod cemetery commemorating the Seminoles fabled road wins.

Wilson doesn’t have a burial ground. Rather, Arline takes a chunk of field from every Tiger victory away from Mike Rozier Stadium, places in it a plastic bag, writes “RIP” and whatever team their playing on it and then places in it a locker at the school.

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It’s unlikely Saturday’s swath ends up hidden away.

Instead, expect it to sit right next to the South Jersey Group 3 championship trophy, which Woodrow Wilson took home with a 22-14 triumph at Burlington Township’s Edward A. Steinmetz Field.

“I feel like I’m in heaven right now,” said quarterback Nick Kargman, who finished with three touchdown passes for the victors.

“This means everything to me,” added Arline. “I was here for the last championship (2001, Wilson’s only other sectional title) when (head coach) Preston (Brown) was a player under me, I was OC then too. … When he started (coaching), he started bringing the tradition back, started bringing a culture back, kids started to want to play for us, and it just blossomed into something great.”

In the three years prior to Brown’s arrival in 2015, the Tigers won a combined six games. When Brown took over, he was told winning wouldn’t be possible at the Camden school.

“People didn’t think I had what it takes to get the job done,” he said. “But you know, ever since I’ve been here we’ve had a winning season. We’ve been to the playoffs every single year. We went to the finals two years in a row. And now we’re sectional champions.”

And the third-seeded Tigers (9-2) are bringing that trophy back home by solving their biggest weakness of the regular season – defense.

Woodrow Wilson allowed 23.3 points per game during its first eight games of the year. It allowed a total of 34 in its three playoff wins.

“A lot of people wrote us off because we had lost some games, gave up some points, gave up a bunch of yards, but once you get to the playoffs it’s a whole different thing,” Brown said. “The defense set the tone in the playoffs from the very beginning.”

Saturday was no different.

The Tigers had four sacks – freshman Jihad Presbery was in on two and juniors Fadil Diggs and Dyshier Clary had one each.

They also created turnovers on each of the Falcons’ first two possessions of the second half – an interception by Marquay Graves and a thunderous forced fumble by Muheem McCargo, which was recovered by Chase Little.

“Hours of hard work,” Diggs said of the reason the unit was able to turn it around.

Kargman’s third touchdown pass of the game, a 10-yard throw to Diggs to go up 22-7 with 5:27 left in the third quarter, was the direct result of McCargo’s destructive hit.

“They gave so much energy,” Kargman said of the D. “They stepped up and won us this game. I’m just so proud of ‘em.”

Senior receiver Stanley King, who finished with six catches, 107 yards and a TD, wasn’t surprised.

The Louisville commit said earlier in the week he expected his defense to “ball out” and shut down the Falcons’ explosive attack. They did, limiting quarterback Danny Grozozski to just 135 yards passing – his second lowest total of the year.

“We the DBU now,” he said, referring to defensive back university. “We the best team out here in South Jersey.”

Wilson was ranked No. 1 in the Gridiron Gang’s Mean 15 rankings through its first six games this year. Then came stunning back-to-back losses to Delsea and Willingboro to close out the regular season.

“It crushed us,” Kargman said. “As a team, we were at a low point.”

The Tigers clawed out of their hole though. They took on Brown’s prove-them-wrong mentality and did just that.

“From feeling like that to feeling like this, it’s a testament to all our hard work,” Kargman said.

And, as Brown told his team in the postgame celebration, it should finally put Wilson’s doubters to rest.

“We the champs.” Brown said. “We the champs.”

Josh Friedman; @JFriedman57; (856) 486-2431; jfriedman2@gannettnj.com

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