Varsity Team

After several meetings during the week, the Board of Education yesterday announced that Wildwood High School would belatedly field a varsity football team this year. Wildwood will forfeit its first game, scheduled at Marist on Saturday, but will play the rest of its schedule, athletic director Jerry France said. France said the school has just 21 players in all four of its classes and will therefore not field a freshman or a junior varsity team. Because of the low turnout and because it has had just a few practices with equipment, the school has decided to forfeit the game against Marist.

In a preseason ranking of the eight football teams in the new Southern Chester County League, Avon Grove High was predicted to finish last. That's typical of the respect first-year varsity squads get. It comes with the territory, as coaches and players who have been there will tell you. It also can fuel an us-against-the-world mentality that works in a young team's favor. "Every team thinks we'll be an easy win, a pushover," said Harley Angelozzi, a senior offensive lineman and linebacker for the Red Devils.

Pemberton's Merlin Gerst is a wrestler who does not give up easily. Which is why the senior is one of South Jersey's top middleweights. Gerst, who did not become acquainted with the sport until the seventh grade, was thrust into the Hornets' varsity lineup as a freshman when the team needed to fill a hole at 125 pounds. And despite Gerst's 5-9-1 record his first season under coach Andy Zuckerman, he was neither disappointed nor deterred. "I didn't know a lot about wrestling when I was a freshman, and I got beat up a lot my first year," Gerst said.

With the determination - and some of the moves - of professionals three times their size, these New Jersey youngsters opened the 25th season of a football program sponsored by Washington Township's Parks and Recreation Department. The 70-pound division game, held early this month on the Bruce Connell field in Woodbury, pitted the host Steelers' varsity team against the Washington Patriots' junior varsity. The Patriots, down by two touchdowns, started a comeback but lost a close one, 12-6.

Four rows of small bleachers are half full. There is no band in the stands, and no mascot along the sideline. It is difficult to hear the cheerleaders. The sun overhead is bright. Welcome to junior varsity football. Welcome to Monday afternoons. Far from the varsity games played before thousands of fans under the glow of stadium lights on Friday nights, junior varsity football in Southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey is an important but overlooked component of high school programs.

Imagine that you belong to what amounts to a junior varsity team playing against varsity competition. Then imagine, in addition to being young and inexperienced, your team doesn't have enough players to hold quality practices. Welcome to the world of the Pemberton girls' soccer team. "It's a shame," said Hornets first-year coach Lisa Stemmer. Due to lack of interest, Pemberton doesn't have enough players to field both junior varsity and varsity teams. As a result, the 17 students who came out to play are all on the varsity team.

Sean Jackson scored 21 points and Corry Appline collected 20, but a player who didn't contribute a single point might have been the biggest reason that Washington took a 51-46 nonleague victory over host Father Judge on Monday afternoon. Jeff Bates, a senior forward, collected nine rebounds to help the Eagles overcome the absence of starter Terrell Wright, who was sidelined by a sore back. "I think he made the difference for us," Washington coach Calvin Jones said of Bates.

When Drew Molotsky was a senior at Cherry Hill High School West in 1985, he gained a slot on the varsity soccer team after spending his first three years playing on the freshmen and junior varsity squads. Molotsky, a goalie, was destined to spend a lot of time on the bench that year because another student was the starter. Then, midway through the first game, the starting goalie was injured, and Molotsky took over. He had a great season, according to his father, David, who is school board vice president.

To put it mildly, the Clearview girls' basketball program was pretty strong last year. The varsity, junior varsity and freshman teams combined for a 56-4 record, a .933 winning percentage. And the varsity team was responsible for all but one of those losses. "We have some kids, even though they haven't had any varsity experience, that have played together as a group and had a great deal of success," coach Don Bills said. "I'm really optimistic about the season. " Those are big words for a man who lost essentially everyone from last year's varsity.

"Fair time, not equal time. " That is what players and parents hear from Shawnee boys' soccer coach Brian Gibney at the start of each season. Every athlete will receive fair playing time - not equal playing time - because they all don't have the same ability, the coach said. Equal time kicks in after the starters have a three-goal lead. Coaches at every level agree that the best athletes should start. However, not all agree with what Gibney has appended to fair-not-equal: a no-cut rule, and the belief that parents are a good source of checks and balances on the coaching staff.

Before another dominant pitching performance Friday against Bensalem, Neshaminy junior Lauren Quense kicked away at the dirt inside the circle. She stomped, swept, and scraped until the area felt right, until she could plant her right foot in the dirt, launch her left foot off the rubber, and unleash her blazing fastball. But still, she was not quite ready to warm up. Something was off, and everything must be in order for her to enter her pitching zone. Third baseman Julia McGovern walked to the mound and added the final touch: She fastened a large, pink bow to Quense's blond ponytail.

When Ben Simons was born at Chester County Hospital in May 1994, the doctor who delivered him told his parents he would be a soccer player - for a practical reason. Simons was born without his left hand and forearm. His mother, Katie Simons, initially thought she might leave her job to tend to her son full-time. "For the first few months I was home with him, I thought, 'This is ridiculous,' " she said. " 'Look at this kid. He's just smiling and growing; there's nothing else wrong with him. He can do whatever he sets his mind to.' And he's continued to prove that to us throughout his life.

Sean Cassel can't bring himself to say that word. Even though his Seneca baseball team returned just one starter and a pitching staff that had logged all of four varsity innings entering the season, Cassel won't concede that this is a rebuilding year. Maybe this attitude explains how in a very short time, Seneca has launched itself into elite South Jersey baseball circles. The first varsity team competed in 2005. By 2007, the Golden Eagles had won the state Group 3 championship.

Coach Laura Stott first saw do-it-all pitcher Katie Wenger's work ethic not on the mound or at the plate but in the classroom. "She definitely jumped out as a student," said Stott, in her first year as Agnes Irwin softball coach and math teacher, "being the one that's into learning and always wanting to take the extra step. " What makes her an ace student also makes her an ace on the mound. Wenger earned first-team all-Inter-Ac honors as a freshman for the league champions last season.

Taylor Donahue and Laura Lesky remember calling each other almost every afternoon when they were little. "Do you want to have a catch?" one of them inevitably would ask. The two Seneca girls' lacrosse players grew up right down the street from each other in Shamong. And the dream of playing Division I lacrosse was there even during those countless days spent playing catch in the back yard. The lifelong dream soon will be reality. The two seniors have played on the same team since starting organized lacrosse in middle school, including on the club team South Jersey Select.

A new basketball team has joined the Cape-Atlantic League, and it is extraordinary. Cedar Creek High School, which opened in September, is fielding a girls' varsity hoops squad. That's unusual because a new school starting with freshmen and sophomores usually has its athletes compete at the junior-varsity level. However, in the case of the Cedar Creek team, five of the nine players have varsity experience. The other four are freshmen with great potential. They are the Stefanski quadruplets from Mullica Township, which is in the Mays Landing area, where the school is situated.

Penns Grove will be banned from the South Jersey Group 1 football playoffs after three of its players were ejected from Saturday's 62-0 win over Salem following a fracas. NJSIAA assistant director Larry White confirmed on Monday that the three players were ejected for flagrant unsportsmanlike conduct after receiving the official's game report. One player from Salem was also ejected. According to the report, a player from each team was involved in an altercation, and two more Penns Grove players left the bench to join the brawl.

Penns Grove's football team faces the prospect of being banned from this year's NJSIAA South Jersey Group 1 state tournament after an incident during Saturday's game in which the visiting Red Devils beat Salem, 62-0. In the first quarter, a fracas broke out. Three Penns Grove players and one Salem player were removed from the game, according to Salem athletic director Dave Suiter. According to NJSIAA Rule 1, Section B: "Any varsity team accumulating three or more player or coach disqualifications for flagrant unsportsmanlike conduct prior to the start of the NJSIAA Tournament will not be permitted to participate in same.

The little guys are growing. The Bicentennial Athletic League, home for Class AA and A (smaller) football teams in District 1, grows by three teams this season. The coaches around the league couldn't be happier. It not only makes scheduling easier, but also reduces any long trips the teams had been taking to find opponents. Longtime league member New Hope-Solebury, Delaware County Christian and Springfield (Montco) are the newcomers in football. The Lions fielded a varsity team for the first time last season and played an independent schedule, including games against four league members.