November 24, 2010

Tom Bergeron
RivalsHigh Senior Editor

Tom Bergeron is the Senior Editor for RivalsHigh.com. Send ideas, questions or comments to TBergero@Yahoo-Inc.com and follow on Twitter.

It makes sense when you think about it.

Beautiful night ... and a more-than-a-hundred-year-old rivalry. So it only figures that over 2,000 people would come to watch some football.

But you have to dig a little deeper to really understand it - to really understand why Phillipsburg, N.J., and Easton, Pa., have the biggest high school football rivalry in the country.

This was a Monday night - a school night, a work night. And the games were not between the two varsity squads, but rather a flag-football doubleheader: First, between the police officers in the two towns; then a powder puff game between the girls at the schools.

"We had 2,152 people come out to watch flag football," said Phillipsburg athletic director Tom Fisher - a man who has been on both sides of the rivalry during his lifetime (more on that later).

"Imagine that, 2,152 people to watch flag football."

The Phillipsburg-Easton Thanksgiving Day Game is a way of life in these towns, which are separated only by the Delaware River.

The first game was played in 1905 and they've played nearly every year since, missing only 1909, 1912 and 1913. They played on every Thanksgiving since 1916.

Easton has won the last four games and leads the series, 58-40-5, but this is a series where games run into each other. As soon as one ends, they start talking about the next one.

"You'll see it," Fisher said. "As soon as the game ends, the people will start breaking down the teams to see which seniors are leaving. This game is talked about for 365 days."

But with any huge rivalry, the game can transcend the actual action on the field. Consider:

It's no wonder it's the RivalsHigh Game of the Week. That title, however, hardly does the game justice.

"It's really tough to put it into perspective unless you live it," Fisher said. "It encapsulates two towns; both are hard-hardworking, blue-collar communities. It's a week-long celebration."

And it's usually some pretty good football.

This year it features two teams that are a combined 19-3 and have outscored their combined opponents, 799-286.

Easton (11-1) has a well-balanced high-powered offense led by quarterback Justin Pacchioli.

Pacchioli has thrown for more than 1,500 yards with 11 TDs and just five interceptions and run for 578 yards and eight more scores.

His main targets are Jonathan Bisci (51 catches for 806 yards and 4 TDs), Justin Souders (19 for 307 and 6 TDs) and Tyler Holies (15 for 245 and 1 TD).

The running game is just as balanced. Zach Bambary leads the team with 669 yards and 14 scores, but gets help from Austin Brown (413 yards, 5 TDs) and James Middletown (398 yards and 8 TDs).

Phillipsburg's offense isn't as certain.

It has been without star receiver Matt Deery (knee injury) since midway through the season.

And it will not know the status of star quarterback Justin Scuorzo (concussion) until game time. Scuorzo has thrown for 1,214 yards and eight TDs this season and is the school's all-time leading passer.

If Scuorzo can't go, Phillipsburg will rely even more on its rushing attack, led by Gerald Van de Cruz and Dana Lee.

Talk about balance, the two have nearly identical stats. Lee has rushed for 1,111 yards and 10 TDs; Van de Cruz has rushed for 1,141 yards and 9 TDs.

Clearly, this game is more than just your standard rivalry contest where the stealing of a mascot is the biggest goal (though the Phillipsburg school web site assures us that happened this year, too.)

It's the high school equivalent of Army-Navy, Harvard-Yale, Stanford-Cal. And if it means playing the game in the middle of the postseason schedule - as Easton will do - so be it.

"We look forward to it," Bambary told the Easton Express-Times after his team won a playoff last Saturday to set up a game this Saturday. "That was our goal ? we want that three (games) in eight (days). It's something amazing.

"It's moments like this that make this tradition, this team and this community so special."

Fisher, however, says the rivalry is evolving.

The identity of the towns is changing a bit - with the nearby farmland becoming suburban communities filled with folks who didn't grow up here.

"They don't understand it," he said. "So we need to educate the newcomers, which is something we never had to do before. But once they get it, once they see how big this is, they get it."

Fisher has lived it his entire life.

He grew up in Easton and was a basketball star at the school, graduating in 1967. When he came back from college, he took a job coaching basketball - at Phillipsburg. He's been there since 1974.

He said he received more than a few anonymous letters questioning his character in the early years, but that he quickly learned how to change his allegiance.

"There's an old axiom," he joked. "Support the school that's giving you a paycheck."

Fisher, however, will be the first one to tell you the game is about the people in the towns.

Even the players, he said, don't fully understand it until years later.

"When you're 15, 16, 17 years old, it's just a big game with a lot of people at it," he said. "By their senior year, they start to understand. But it's not until they come back to it years later that they fully understand what they've been so fortunate enough to be a part of."

Now that's a big game.