Monmouth-Roseville airs it out early to stun No. 3 Princeton

MONMOUTH - Monmouth-Roseville threw a big surprise at the Princeton Tigers Friday night.

The Titans turned to their little-used passing game for a pair of first-quarter touchdown passes by quarterback Andy Myers to build a 14-3 halftime lead.

Monmouth-Roseville turned back to its running game in the second half, scoring 17 points to run away with a 31-3 upset win over the No. 3 ranked Tigers, the six-time defending Three Rivers Mississippi Division champion.

It was a statement win for the Titans, who improved to 5-0 for the first time in school history, 3-0 atop the TRAC Mississippi.

“We don’t have one of these (statement wins), not against a team like that and play as thoroughly as we did,” Mon-Rose head coach Jeremy Adolphson said. “The kids just played their tails off. You saw their confidence rise. We’ve been knocking on the door for awhile and sometimes you have to kick it down one time. And once we started to, the kids really started to feel it and the crowd was awesome and the atmosphere was awesome.

“Princeton’s an awesome team and hopefully we won’t see them again. Hopefully we both go for a long time (in the playoffs) and on separate sides.”

Princeton coach Ryan Pearson simply said the Titans were too physical for the Tigers.

“My hats off to Monmouth-Roseville. They just outplayed us today,” Pearson said. “I truly felt they came out with a lot of fire and took it to us.”

Myers connected with Payton Thompson for a 28-yard score to cap a six-play, 70-yard scoring drive on the opening possession of the game.

That duo hooked up again with Thompson grabbing a 16-yard scoring pass, capping a 7-play, 60-yard scoring drive to go up 14-0 with 4:29 left in the first quarter.

Pearson said it was a breakdown in coverage.

“It was just an execution mistake. We were supposed to be in one coverage, which would have had that,” he said. “I’m not going to make excuses. They made plays when it counted and we didn’t.”

Pearson admitted the Titans hadn’t shown much of a passing game in their scouting film they had.

“They really hadn’t thrown a whole lot,” he said. “I think they only had a handful of passes in the games we had on them. It’s a testament to those guys to come out with that scheme.

“At the same time, it came down I thought they were more physical than us.”

The Titans passing game is something they’ve been working on in practice, if not under the Friday Night Lights, Adolphson said.

“Obviously, we haven’t thrown it much. Believe it or not, we’ve probably thrown 100-plus passes in live team action the last three weeks,” he said. “We just felt like we needed to have it ready to go for here.”

Thompson scored all four of the Titans’ touchdowns on the night, including a 41-yard run in the third quarter and a 4-yard run in the fourth quarter.

Princeton’s only score of the night came on a field goal by Ian Morris, who used a strong wind to his back for a booming 49-yarder with 51.3 seconds left in the first half, topping his school record of 48 yards last week.

Mon-Rose held Princeton to 132 yards rushing on 43 attempts while racking up 182 of their own.

Myers completed 5 of 6 passes for 126 yards, none bigger than the two TD passes in the first quarter.

The win was the 100th career coaching win for Adolphson.

“The 100 wins is cool, but I’m way more happy to get to five with this group here and the way they got it against one of the best programs in our conference,” Adolphson said.

The Tigers look to rebound next week against rival Hall for its 2024 Homecoming game.

“We told them us as a staff are not going to give up. The only thing we can do is respond and we’re going to go right back to work on Monday and hopefully correct the things we saw tonight. That’s all we can do.”