Beyond The X: Hurricane Sandy doesn't foil Point Pleasant Beach's dream season

POINT PLEASANT BEACH, N.J. — In the midst of celebrating a 28-point win on Oct. 27 that continued the program's best start in history, the members of the Point Pleasant Beach (N.J.) football team noticed the team bus had veered from its usual route home.

The bus crested the bridge over the Manasquan River and down toward the town line of Point Pleasant Beach, approaching a surprising sight. Idling at the base of the bridge were trucks from Point Pleasant Beach Fire Company No. 2, lights flashing and sirens blaring in celebration of the first 8-0 start for a school that has been playing football for nearly 100 years. With the fire trucks serving as an escort, the Garnet Gulls took the long way home as fans and residents lined the main thoroughfare of Route 35 south, waving and clapping in appreciation of the team from the tiny school of 315 students.

It spoke to the struggles of the program over its history: Even though the Garnet Gulls hadn't yet won a championship of any kind, their performance still merited a town-wide celebration.

"We had no idea they were going to do that,'' said junior offensive lineman Tom D'Amore. "I actually almost started tearing up.''



"In a town where this team used to stink for so long, to get to the point where you're getting escorted back into town by fire trucks, that was just crazy,'' said senior two-way lineman Timmy Morris.

However, the euphoria of that Saturday afternoon was tempered by a gnawing sense of unease. All of the players had watched the news and seen the weather reports.

A freakishly strong hurricane was racing up the East Coast, promising to bring record flooding and unprecedented destruction less than 48 hours after Point Beach's 42-14 win over Keyport High School.

Hurricane Sandy was on its way, and the spot many meteorologists were circling on their television graphics was the little slice of the Jersey Shore that the members of the Garnet Gulls call home.

"Reality set in,'' said senior offensive guard/linebacker Quinn Kusma. "We had been through hurricanes before, but this time it was different. The news reports were getting worse and worse.''

Less than two days later, those same blaring sirens and horns that had signaled their success became the harrowing sounds of an area being ripped apart by Sandy's wrath. They were the soundtrack to a new chapter in a season filled with a dizzying mix of unprecedented highs and unfathomable lows that the players, coaches and fans will never forget.

Video by Scott Stump/Edited by Ryan Escobar

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Then all hell broke loose

When the players returned to the fieldhouse following the victory over Keyport that tied the school single-season record for wins, second-year head coach John Wagner told them to put their cleats at the top of their lockers.



"I thought maybe the water might sneak in or something could go wrong, not knowing what was really going to happen,'' Wagner said.

As the menacing and massive green blob on the radar moved closer to the Jersey Shore and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie urged residents in coastal areas to evacuate, the Point Pleasant Beach players were a mixture of apprehension and skepticism.

In addition to the town of Point Pleasant Beach, the high school also includes students from the beach towns of Lavallette, Bayhead and Mantoloking.

"We had Hurricane Irene over the summer and that didn't do much, so I didn't think this would be much worse,'' Morris said. "Then all hell broke loose.''

Kusma, who lives only five houses from the beach in the coastal town of Lavallette, evacuated to a relative's home in Philadelphia, which his family had done customarily in previous hurricanes. Senior running back Andre Cochran and his family left their home one block from the beach and stayed in neighboring Point Pleasant Borough with his older brother.

Wagner sent his wife to stay with friends up in northern New Jersey and remained in his home in nearby Manasquan. In a tradition established during previous hurricanes, senior running back Danny Tighe went to stay with Morris out of superstition.

D'Amore and his family planned to ride out the storm, even if it meant having to migrate to the second floor because of potential flooding.

The outer bands of Hurricane Sandy arrived on Sunday afternoon, barely 24 hours after the win over Keyport. They brought rain and heavy winds, but were a pale imitation of what was about to hit land in full force with a tidal surge of historic proportions.

At 5 a.m. on Monday, D'Amore and his sister were startled awake by their parents. The family had to leave immediately. The water was rising at a rate no one had ever seen, and high tide had yet to arrive.

"It was just surreal,'' D'Amore said.

At Point Pleasant Beach Fire Company No. 2, the frantic calls from residents started Sunday night and didn't stop for days. By Monday, the firehouse itself was flooded.

"It was deeper water than I've ever seen before in the town, and I have lived here all 46 years of my life,'' said Lt. Michael Brodeur, a 30-year veteran of the fire company and the technology coordinator at the high school.

Houses were battered by waves and a relentless wall of water, telephone poles fell like trees in a forest and sparking power lines crackled in winds that reached 90 mph. The New Jersey Transit railroad tracks that parallel Route 35 became the dividing line of civilization. West of the tracks was the 21st Century and minor damages. East of the tracks toward the beach, which includes Point Pleasant Beach's football field, was an underwater nightmare plunged into apocalyptic chaos.

"You couldn't do much east of the tracks until late Tuesday afternoon,'' Brodeur said. "It was a shock what was going on. We had an Army 6-by-6 truck, and we still couldn't get through the water.''



When Sandy finally let the Jersey Shore out of its merciless grip late Monday night, an eerie silence filled the darkness in the town before the sirens began blaring. Tighe, who was unable to reach his family for two days because there was no cell phone service, ventured to the beach in nearby Bayhead at 6 a.m. Tuesday with Morris to get a first-hand glimpse.

"It looked like nothing I had ever seen before,'' Tighe said.

"You couldn't imagine what we saw,'' Morris said. "There were kitchen floors in the middle of the highway, piles of sand, houses jolted with electricity and wires hanging everywhere. It was just devastating. I knew one of the policemen who was there, and he said, ‘I don't even know where we're going to start.'"

Far from home, Kusma feared the worst as he scoured the Internet for reports of what had become of his town. He wouldn't be able to return to his home for nearly two weeks because it was deemed unsafe by authorities.

"I saw pictures and reports of crazy things happening all over the island where I live, and fires setting houses aflame,'' Kusma said. "I was expecting to wake up in the morning and have someone call and say our house wasn't there anymore.''

Cochran and his father knew a local police officer who allowed them to visit their home on Tuesday morning. The entire first floor was flooded with 4 feet of water, and the ground was covered in sand, shells and dead fish.

"It was a nightmare that came true,'' Cochran said.

It's one thing to see images of devastation on television, and entirely another to see them where your living room used to be.



"I went down to Louisiana a couple years ago with the church, so I knew what it was like down there (after Hurricane Katrina),'' D'Amore said. "I never could've imagined it could've happened to me.''

"It was unbelievable,'' Kusma said. "It was a disaster zone from the tip of the island over to my house in Lavallette. (It was) stuff that I had never seen before, only on TV when you looked at Katrina or a war-torn country.''

The spot where a home belonging to Morris' stepfamily in nearby Mantoloking previously stood was now a newly formed inlet of the river. Three feet of water covered Point Pleasant Beach's football field. The National Guard was out in force on the streets, wielding assault rifles and blocking entrances to ravaged areas with Humvees while keeping an eye out for looters. Brodeur and his fellow firemen were going door-to-door to check if anyone was trapped in their home and turning off gas meters to prevent potential explosions and fires.

"My older brother Pat was in the Marines for five years,'' Morris said. "He said, ‘I've seen the worst four corners of the world. I've blown up houses in Afghanistan before, and I've never seen devastation like this.'

"The sirens that were cheering us after (beating) Keyport were now for houses on fire and gas leaking everywhere.''

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The best of people

Two days after the storm, Wagner gathered as many players as he could contact and had them meet at the fieldhouse to share stories and get updates on how everyone was doing.

He then organized them to start going door-to-door to help residents of the destroyed areas near the beach in addition to assisting members of the team whose homes were wrecked. Wearing their red and white, the players began knocking down drywall, ripping up carpets and carrying debris to the curb for neighbors and strangers alike.



"I said, ‘Listen, they've been so supportive of us this year, let's help some of those people out,''' Wagner said. "(There were) a lot of tears, but a lot of pride and a lot of understanding about what kids are about today. Sometimes 16-year-olds get a pretty bad rap out there that they're not concerned. I think it really exposed them to the community. Those are those same kids you're cheering for on Friday night, and here they are in your homes helping.''

"That was incredible,'' Kusma said. "You had all these people that had really had a lot of their lives taken away from them. Just to give them a little bit of help for two hours in a day was awesome. You saw a lot of smiles on people's faces that I don't think (they had) in the past few days.''

The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association postponed the games scheduled that week to the following week, so the Garnet Gulls could focus strictly on helping repair a shattered area. By a quirk of the schedule, they had their bye week scheduled at that time, which resulted in a three-week layoff before the state playoffs began. Many players were living in temporary housing, and helping others took their minds off their own situations.

"Once we started working on other houses, we knew it wasn't just us,'' Cochran said. "Everyone got affected. It brought a different sense to everything.''

"You feel guilty because I had no damage from the storm, and I know people who lost houses,'' Brodeur said. "You hear them say, ‘Everything is gone. What do we do?' You just feel helpless. It tugs at your soul.''

The school reopened on Nov. 8, one day before a "nor'easter" rolled through to further add to the misery and hinder relief efforts. There were no physical education classes because the gym was filled wall-to-wall with supplies donated to families in need.



"We just wanted to get the kids in here to know where they were and allow them to network with each other just to find out where everyone was,'' Point Pleasant Beach Athletic Director Ellen Magliaro said. "We had students coming in to the gym just to get clothes because they had lost everything."

Local real estate broker Bruce Fioretti, the uncle of sophomore starting quarterback Jake Fioretti, jumped into action to help find displaced families somewhere to live.

"We started an exchange on Facebook for people who needed housing and people who had housing to rent because half the town was destroyed,'' Fioretti said. "You really saw the best of people in all of this because people stepped up and helped however they could by renting their homes or taking in families.''

A week after the storm, the players were back at practice to give them something to count on in a time where nothing else in their lives was certain. The main question that loomed was whether Sandy would derail a dominating season in which the Garnet Gulls had scored at least 40 points in each of their first eight games. They were averaging 325 yards rushing per game in their Wing-T attack with the three-headed beast of Tighe, Cochran and senior Kyle Samaritano.

The hurricane may have changed their lives, but it didn't change their goals. They wanted to become the first team in school history to win a sectional championship and finish 12-0.

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The glue of the community

Point Pleasant Beach made its return to the field on Nov. 16, with the win over Keyport 20 days earlier seemingly belonging to a different season. The Garnet Gulls hosted the first home playoff game in their history when they welcomed South River High School for a Central Jersey Group I quarterfinal.

Wagner stayed up late the night before the game composing a pregame speech to be delivered over the loudspeaker to the communities of Point Pleasant Beach and South River, which was also hit hard by the storm. Wagner led Roselle Park in northern New Jersey to titles in 1992-93 and won 150 games from 1981-2005, but he never felt as nervous as he did composing that speech.



"That was probably one of the games I really was unnerved about and really felt of all the games, we have to win this,'' Wagner said.

"I think the town was more emotional than we were,'' Kusma said. "We were ready to go do our business.'' 

The Garnet Gulls picked up right where they left off, thrashing South River 44-6 to win just their third state playoff game in school history and their second in the last two seasons. There were tears and hugs in the stands from a weary community looking for anything positive to grab on to.

"The team was like the glue of the community,'' Fioretti said. "It brought everyone back together.''

Less than a week later, Point Pleasant Beach faced rival Shore Regional in a highly anticipated showdown in their homecoming game on Thanksgiving Day. The Garnet Gulls halted Shore's eight-game winning streak and clinched their first Shore Conference division title since 1997 with a hard-fought, 19-7 victory.

"That was an unbelievable day,'' Morris said. "I've never felt better in my life.''

It looked like nothing was going to stop Point Pleasant Beach's magical run to an undefeated season. It fit the narrative perfectly of a team taking its devastated area on a ride for the ages.

Next up was a Central Jersey Group I semifinal game against Florence High School, a gritty and well-coached team that had reached the championship game a year earlier and had plenty of big-game experience.

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A balloon that popped
On Nov. 30, the Garnet Gulls welcomed Florence to the field named after Donald T. Fioretti, a longtime coach at Point Pleasant Beach and the grandfather of the starting quarterback. Wagner and his staff were concerned about the Flashes' power running game and physical defense, which proved to be prescient.

At first, it looked like Point Pleasant Beach was on its way to another lopsided win when it drove right down the field and scored on a 16-yard touchdown pass from Fioretti to Cochran in the first quarter.



Florence answered with a 12-play, 51-yard drive to take a 7-6 lead early in the second quarter. It looked like the Flashes might become the first team all season to lead Point Pleasant Beach at halftime before Fioretti tossed his second touchdown pass of the game, hitting senior tight end Nick Fiore with a 26-yard strike. Samaritano then ran in a 2-point conversion to give the Garnet Gulls a 14-7 lead at the break.

Florence tied the game in the third quarter when Fioretti was hit as he threw, and the interception was returned 36 yards for a touchdown by Florence defensive back Eric Chapman to knot it up at 14.

On Point Pleasant Beach's next possession, Tighe, who led the Shore Conference with 1,569 yards rushing, took a helmet to his right leg and writhed on the ground in agonizing pain. He was the team's Superman, an all-around playmaker who was averaging better than 13 yards a carry for the season.

"I heard it snap, and I just knew it wasn't good,'' Tighe said. "I never expected my senior year to end like that.''

"Losing Danny Tighe in the third quarter was heartbreaking for our kids,'' Wagner said. "It was very emotional for us on the sideline and in the huddles for the next six or eight minutes. The kids really lost their composure for a period of time.''

Tighe was taken off the field on a cart in tears for what turned out to be a broken right fibula. He remained on the sideline in pain on the cart with his leg immobilized for the rest of the game before going to the hospital because he wanted to stay with his team.

With Tighe out of the game, Florence continued to bottle up Point Pleasant Beach's potent running attack, which only managed 88 yards for the night. The Flashes eventually drove to Point Pleasant Beach's 10-yard line to set up a 33-yard field goal by kicker Doug MacArthur for a 17-14 lead with 5:48 left in the game.

The Garnet Gulls had one final shot when they got the ball at their own 25-yard line with 2:41 left in the game. The Hollywood ending seemed imminent when Fioretti hit Samaritano on the run and he sprinted 70 yards to the Florence 5-yard line as the home crowd roared. However, a clipping penalty at midfield negated the play.

Fioretti kept the home team's hopes alive when he converted a fourth-and-17 by finding Samaritano crossing the field. Four plays later, Point Pleasant Beach was at the Flashes' 18-yard line and the stands were shaking.

Facing a third-and-10 with no timeouts remaining, Fioretti tried to run for a first down as the seconds trickled into the single digits. He was tackled short of the marker and looked up in anguish as time ran out on his team's dream season. A week later, Florence beat Shore Regional 23-17 in double overtime to win the Central Jersey Group I title.

"I saw our quarterback get tackled on the last play, and it was just all the air and all the energy that had built up in you through the past three weeks just got let out,'' Kusma said. "You were a balloon that popped. You could see it in a lot of kids' faces for the next few moments. It's a moment I don't want to relive.''

"It literally was like the movie ‘Friday Night Lights,''' Bruce Fioretti said. "We had all been through so much, and they came so close, but came up just short at the end."

There would be no Cinderella ending, and there would be no more school history. Players hugged one another and sobbed uncontrollably. Tears flowed in the stands.

"When the game ended, I've never been on a field before with such a devastating feeling,'' Wagner said. "What was coming out of their mouths was, ‘What are we going to do now? We didn't get this done.' I think the football season kind of masked the devastation for obviously the players and also a lot of people in the stands.''

"After the game, I thought I was pretty good, but then seeing everybody else, I broke down,'' D'Amore said. "We were living the dream, and we never thought it would end that way.''

Living in a hotel, staring at a foreign ceiling in bed at night in an unfamiliar house or dragging cherished belongings to the curb all seemed a little bit easier to handle when there was another game to look forward to.

"That pile of debris in front of your house, it's real now,'' Bruce Fioretti said.

"It was back to reality, back to living our lives,'' Cochran said.

The hourglass had officially been tipped on the time left together for a group of players who formed a special bond. Fiore and Morris are both joining the U.S. Marine Corps, while some other seniors will go their separate ways.

"I could be on the other side of the world at this time next year,'' Morris said. "Knowing I will never put a Beach football helmet on again is the hardest part. Now it's time to move on to the next chapter of our lives.''

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A special year and a special group of kids

With the open wound of the Florence loss reduced to more of a dull ache, the players have realized all they accomplished. They finished with a school-record 10 wins and 437 points, and their first division title in 15 years. Before going 8-3 the previous season, the Garnet Gulls hadn't even had a winning season since capturing that division crown in 1997.



"That was a tough loss to swallow, but looking back on it now, we made history at Point Beach,'' Tighe said. "Deep down inside, I feel we accomplished a lot not just for the program, but for the whole town. We worked through the tragedy of Sandy, and it made us become men."

"They won't forget this one for a while,'' Brodeur said. "They could go undefeated next year and win the states, and people will still talk about this year. This was a special year and a special group of kids.''

Many of them celebrated Christmas and New Year's in foreign places, but it's more about who you're with than where you're at.

"We got a roof over our heads, and we (had) friends taking us in for Christmas Eve, so we know we have people that care. ... And we have each other," D'Amore said.

"It was weird putting up a Christmas tree in a new house,'' said Cochran, who added that the tragedy didn't stop team members from having a great holiday.

Some of them may not see each other for 20 years after they graduate in June, but one mention of this season will make time melt away.



"It's going to be great seeing each other knowing that we went through the greatest storm that's ever been,'' D'Amore said. "We helped each other through it, and we were part of the greatest football team Point Beach has ever had.'' Scott Stump is the co-owner/managing editor of All Shore Media in New Jersey and a freelance writer/broadcaster who has covered scholastic sports for 14 years.