“The leadership on this team and getting everybody bought in has been great. We’ve taken our lumps throughout the years, but this year we had something special going on,” Allen said. I love being under those Friday night lights. I think this team has a good group coming back and I think they can do big things.”įellow senior Jaden Allen, a defensive end and tight end who originally committed to Utah State before switching to Fordham, agrees with his teammate. that’s what you have to do to be a championship, playoff football team. It’s not just about what you do when it’s football season, it’s about all the things you do in the offseason when nobody is there watching. I think it’s just going to come down to holding everyone accountable, making sure everyone is doing their job. There’s a lot of talent here, and I think we’re on the verge of something great very soon. “I think Washington Township can compete for a championship very soon. “We’ve had coach Schatzman since our freshman year, and on our first day of practice (four years ago) he said, ‘I want you guys to leave this program better than you found it.’ I think we did that,” said quarterback Liam Friel, a senior who will graduate in a few months. That’s how the foundation for success will be laid in this program, brick by brick. Schatzman’s mantra since he took over three years ago has been “leave the program better than you found it.” It’s a challenge to each incoming freshman class to outwork the previous one. ![]() The biggest thing for me is, when I got hired we had about 75 kids in the program and this past year we had 135, so that goes to show how kids are more excited to be a part of the program and how much they enjoy it. A lot of credit has to go to my staff and the kids for that, they’ve put in the work and been committed to it. “I think from 2018 to 2020 has been a big difference, just looking back and watching film to see how far we’ve come and how much better the kids have gotten. We had three coaches in three years at one point, so it was hard for the kids to get comfortable in any kind of system,” Schatzman said. There’s more consistency and the kids are hearing the same voices, and in years past we just haven’t had that because there was so much turnover. Year three, compared to Year One, there’s a big difference, and not just for me, but for the whole staff. “It’s tough to say with this year and the COVID, but I think we would have been a playoff team and could have been a pretty high seed in South Jersey Group 5 had we had a full season. Schatzman said it has been the lack of consistency that has hurt his team, and that’s a big focus this offseason - doing all the little things it takes now to build a consistently good team in the fall. But in 2019 the Minutemen squandered a 3-2 start, dropping their final five games to finish at 3-7. Township went 2-2 this past fall, beating Shawnee and Eastern while taking Kingsway into overtime. ![]() Schatzman has a lot of confidence that Washington Township can rekindle its glory days of the 80s and 90s, and the former Minutemen player is intent on doing what it takes to get this program to the next level. From Offensive Line to Quarterback, Liam Friel Help Lead Washington Twp.
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