Passing the test

McDade connects on 20 of 23 passes, Pennsville wins consolation tournament opener to guarantee .500 season

SJ GROUP I
CONSOLATION TOURNAMENT
Thursday’s games
Pennsville 41, New Egypt 14
Keansburg 48, Manville 20

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

PENNSVILLE — Robbie McDade has worked hard this season to make himself a better passer and all that work came to a head Thursday night.

The Pennsville sophomore quarterback had one of the best passing efficiency games in program history. He completed a career-high 20 of 23 passes for a second-best 179 yards and two touchdowns in the Eagles’ 41-14 victory over New Egypt in the South Jersey Group I regional consolation semifinals.

In a game that might be an afterthought to some teams shut out of the NJSIAA playoffs, McDade and the Eagles were as sharp as they’ve been all season.

McDade was 14-of-15 passing in the first half and completed his last 11 in a row (a stretch that extended to 12 in the third quarter). He directed the Eagles to touchdowns on each of their last four possessions of the half for a 28-6 halftime lead.

Of the three passes he missed, two were dropped and the third was thrown out of bounds after he was flushed from the pocket. He had an NCAA-style passer rating of 181.03 for the game.

“I had a lot of good receivers who got open,” McDade said. “It’s a team game. The receivers did their job. Got open. I’ve just got to deliver the ball.”

And he spread the wealth. He hit six different receivers throwing a combination of mid-range possession passes and flippy shuttle tosses. Hayden Sherman caught eight balls for 47 yards. Malik Rehmer caught six for 62 yards. The touchdown passes went to Caden Thomas and Ty Young. 

“I’m just trying to throw it to the open guy and lot of people got open today,” McDade said. “The receivers did a good job.”

He’s been finding his receivers a lot lately. McDade has had a 50 percent or better completion rate in three of his last four games and has passed for more than 100 yards in every game this season. For the year he is 97-of-184 for 1,238 yards, making him the Eagles’ first 1,000-yard passer since 2019 (Blayne Swaffar, 1149 yards) and their most productive since 2017 (Brandon Morris, 1507 yards).

“He’s getting better at getting the ball to the open guy, make the easy throw, take the easy throw and let our kids try to make plays, and that’s what he did a good job with tonight,” Eagles coach Mike Healy said. “Every game he’s getting better. He had a tough game last week and he was frustrated, but with him he’s going to come back and keep working hard and fix some things, which is good.”

The win guaranteed the Eagles (5-4) a .500 season. They will host Keansburg (4-5) for the South Jersey Group I consolation final Thursday. The Titans, located on the Raritan Bay a lot closer to Yankee Stadium than Lou D’Angelo Stadium, beat Manville 48-20 in the other semifinal.

“We’re using this for kind of two things,” Healy said. “One, we want to send the seniors out right. Two, we were 1-8 last year. If we have the opportunity to keep winning and get a winning record that’s a huge improvement. We bring back so many kids also, we want to keep trying to get better.

“We came out to play. I didn’t feel like we treated it as a game like it didn’t mean anything to us. Kids were running around making plays. We had goals at the beginning of the season. We didn’t achieve them all, but still we had a bunch of goals that show our progress and that’s what we need to keep doing, so overall there was a lot of good stuff.”

Pennsville 41, New Egypt 14

NE		PVL
5	1st Downs	23
14-43	Rushing	38-183
7-18-2	Passes	20-23-0
88	Passing	179
2-0	Fum-lost	1-0
4-25.3	Punts-avg	2-38.5
3-18	Penalties	4-35

New Egypt (3-7)	6	0	0	8 –	14
Pennsville (5-4)	7	21	7	6 –	41