A Winning Weekend (except for the Jets)

This was a big weekend for some football teams and players as well as 5-month Carter James Williams:

On the day the New York Jets hit rock-bottom Mike Gesicki had the best game of his young NFL career.  The Jets fell to 1-7 after losing to the previously winless Dolphins and one of the key players for Miami was Gesicki, a former Southern Regional High School and Penn State University standout.

The second year tight end caught a career-high six passes for 95 yards to lead Miami and hopefully his first NFL touchdown is right around the corner.

If you missed what Monmouth University did on the football field this weekend then you truly missed what was likely the biggest win in the 27 year history of the program.  In Georgia the Hawks rolled past Kennesaw State 45-21 who had been ranked 4^th in the nation and had not lost a Big South home game in more than three years.

The Monmouth effort got a big boost from senior co-captain Tymere Berry (Toms River South) who ran an interception back for the first touchdown of his college career.  The upset victory puts the Hawks in the driver’s seat to win their first Big South title and Sunday they were named the STATS FCS National Team of the Week.  Monmouth will host North Alabama this Saturday at noon.

27 of the 43 football-playing schools from the Shore Conference have earned spots in the NJSIAA Playoffs which begin next weekend.  Topping that group is undefeated Wall as the Crimson Knights grab the top seed in Central Jersey Group 3.  Among the schools to begin their playoff journey at home in the first round are Toms River North, Jackson Memorial, Southern, Toms River East, Ocean, Manasquan and Donovan Catholic although the Griffins don’t play St. John Vianney until November 15^th.

As for Carter, he’s my grandson and Sunday he was baptized at Saint Ann Catholic Church in Hoboken.  Carter was one of four infant boys welcomed into the Christian community there and it might have been the quietist Baptism ceremony ever as not one of them cried at any point.

We had a truly wonderful day with Brandon & Jill hosting a great family reception at Battelo in Jersey City afterwards in which we got to sing Happy Birthday a day early to my 92 year old mother.  Not a bad day at all.