Morris won its first ever New Jersey state HS club title over the weekend, beating Union 34-17 to get there.
Facing a very big and physical Union side, Morris went into the game with a specific game plan:
Make the Union forwards chase the game all over the field;
Emphasize quick ball from the rucks and quick use of that quick ball;
Send the scrumhalf on snipes when it's on;
Change the alignment to cover the unavailability of starting fullback Sebastian Giese using deep three and a second-tier defending in co-captain Thomas McDevitt.
This approach required patience because if it was designed to tire out the Union players, then that would happen later in the game. Early on the Union pack was pushing the Morris scrums, but as the game wore on it was the fit Morris pack that got the ascendency.
Also key was controlling possession, which required non-runners in pods to latch on quickly and clear out quickly. Meanwhile, key attacking talent Oliver Acuna-Casey was moved from center to fullback with the expectation that strong Morris defense would force kicks and he would be able to counter-attack—Morris was not intending to kick back but run.
Union Head Coach Ryan “Tree” Murphy had his team well-prepared also; they elected to receive the ball in the first half and the game started with heavy clashes just as their regular-season game had. Morris answered with double team tackling with co-captain Joe Burke leading the battle along with Charley Colvin, Evan Rothery, Ezra Bardo, Oliver Griffiths, and brothers Ivan and Ayden Gomez. Union co-captain Charley Blessing had some success attacking Morris defensive gainline but Morris quickly recovered, pushing back rest of the Union attackers. With mounting another attack and after few phases, Ayden Gomez touched down, but the try was disallowed as a Morris player had dived over the ruck.
Still Morris kept the pressure on Union and after a few phases Ezra Bardo scored the first try from a ruck near the left corner and Morris led 5-0.
From the ensuing kickoff Union applied tremendous pressure but Morris kept attacking with some daring runs from Oliver Sadler, Callan Hughes, and Sebastian Occhino but Union held on. From a Lineout, Andrew Stickley made a break. No. 8 Ivan Gomez followed on nd while he was stopped Union was penalized for offside. Morris tapped and McDevitt sent a long pass to Rothery. He was stopped but again Union was penalized. Finally Tiyaan Pillai ran a smart line out of of Sebastian Occhino and was in. McDevitt converted and it was 12-0.
Union responded later in the first half, powering through the phases (and thus showing why Morris's plan of controlling possession was a good one) before scoring near the posts. The conversion was good and the score was now 12-7.
