Notes on 2009 Summit Football
Many things combined to produce the magical season all of us Summit fans have just enjoyed:
- Summit High School had one of the best senior classes in its storied history, 25 strong.
- The Seniors enjoyed the support of a great group of Juniors and Sophomores.
- The team had a fantastic Head Coach in John Liberato, who assembled an outstanding team of assistant coaches and embraced a strong group of volunteer assistants. Coach Liberato, and his staff, managed to turned around a football program that that was moribund into the best program in Union County, in just three seasons. In the process, Coach Liberato's presence has had a positive influence on all of Summit's varsity programs.
- Finally, the Summit community provided unparalleled support. One only had to observe the 6000+ fans who were at Giant Stadium to know how this team had captured the heart of Summit.
All this led to a perfect 12-0 season and the North 2 Group 2 Championship!!
Along the way a number of Summit football records were broken:
- Best Season Record: This season's 12-0 replaced the old record of 11-0, set in 1993.
- Most Points Scored: The 520 points recorded in 2009 broke the old record of 433 set in 1993.
- Most Rushing Yards: The 3069 yards rushing in 2009 broke the old record of 2770 set in 1993.
- Most Extra Points in a season: Alex Melendez's 66 PATs shattered the old record of 32 set by Gus Nelson in 1970.
- Most Points by a Kicker in a Season: Alex Melendez's 72 points shattered the old record of 35 set by Gus Nelson in 1970.
- Most consecutive Extra Point Kicks (a new category): Alex Melendez 55
While not official records the following are worth noting:
- Two Summit players led the list of leading scorers in Union County. Dwaine Dabney scored 144 points and Matt Rea was close behind with 132.
- Joe Jaskolski's 1454 yards passing placed him in 3rd place all-time behind Robbie Schroeder (2121) and Keith Schroeder (2006)
- Joe Jaskolski's 18 TD passes placed him 2nd all-time behind Rob Schroeder (23)
Matt Rea scored a team high 8 TDs in the three playoff games.
- Never in the 117 year history of Summit Football have all levels (Varsity, Junior Varsity & Freshmen) of the program gone undefeated (12-0, 9-0, 9-0)
- Summit was the only Union County team to make it to a Sectional Final.
- The Summit Cheerleaders committed themselves to do pushup equal the current Summit points each time there was a score. Little did they no what kind of a season it would be. Over the 12 games they did 2001 pushups, it took guts, enthusiasm and commitment.
If I have overlooked something that should be noted please contact me by email.