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Blair Closes Season With Blowout of Rival Peddie

November 21, 2024

Blair_Peddie_01 — Blair’s Andrew Pearce rushed for 148 yards against Peddie in the Bucs’ season closer. He’s seen here evading a tackle attempt by Kiski Oct. 12. Photo by Joe Phalon.

The Blair Buccaneers had a mixed season, ending with a 4-5 record, but they closed out the year the best way possible — beating the beak off their long-time rival, the Peddie Falcons, on their turf, 42-7.

The win bumps Blair’s lead over Peddie to 59-50, following the Buc’s 14-0 win over Peddie last season.

The Blair-Peddie game is the oldest high school rivalry in New Jersey and one of the longest in the United States going back to 1903. It’s even older than the Phillipsburg-Easton rivalry by two years.

There have been five ties and one game skipped in 1944 because of a polio outbreak at Peddie and another in 2020 because of COVID-19.

Both schools have more than a week of activities leading up to the game, which alternates school fields each year. Since 1988, most fall sports take part in the day’s activities, with the winner of the most games, including football, soccer, cross country, field hockey and tennis, winning the Potter Kelley Cup.

Doing their part for the football component of the rivalry, the Bucs brought a 21-7 lead into halftime, doubling that score in the second half while keeping Peddie from adding to their score.

Blair’s Andrew Pearce tore up the Peddie field in Hightstown with 148 of the Bucs’ 190 rushing yards. Pearce also scored four touchdowns.

Merritt Fisher finished Blair’s season with 1,101 passing yards. Photo by Joe Phalon.

The Buc defense held Peddie to 36 yards rushing, but Peddie did lead in passing yards with 134 to Blair’s 44. Blair quarterback Merritt Fisher completed six of 12 attempts for those 44 yards.

Fisher finished the season passing for 1,101 yards, going 104 yards on 194 attempts.

Blair played a relatively tidy game against Peddie, avoiding many of the miscues and mental mistakes that had punctuated most of the season.

“We had way too many self-inflicted wounds,” said head coach Greg Bowman. “False starts, not capitalizing when we had the ball inside the 20.”

But repetition on some fundamentals during the later part of the season helped the Bucs work through some of those lapses, culminating in the victory over rival Peddie.

The Blair-Peddie game returns to Blairstown in 2025.

Joe Phalon, Contributing Writer

Contributing Writer

Joe brings decades of journalism experience to the Ridge View Echo, covering everything from local school boards to the U.S. Supreme Court. A former National Law Journal editor and Columbia Law School press officer, he now enjoys telling community stories in Blairstown, where he lives with his wife, Rose, and their two dachshunds.