Binkiewicz Represents Scotch Plains-Fanwood in the Snapple Bowl

There may be a play in the fourth quarter when a deep pass will be made. On that throw, it might be up to safety Gary Binkiewicz to block that throw and prevent a touchdown.

Binkiewicz will represent Scotch Plains in Thursday's MyCentralJersey.com Snapple Bowl XVII, set for a 7 p.m. kickoff at East Brunswick High School. He will play for the Union County squad, which seeks to snap Middlesex County's four-game winning streak.

"It's an honor because a lot of good players came through Scotch Plains to play in this," Binkiewicz said Sunday after a break in a Union County practice held at Westfield.

Middlesex leads the series 9-7. Before Middlesex won four in a row, Union won three straight games. Union is seeking to win its first Snapple Bowl since 2005.

"We've got a really good team and I don't think it's going to be a problem this year," Binkiewicz said.

Binkiewicz graduated Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School in June, and will attend Quinnipiac University in the fall. He will try to make Quinnipiac's baseball team as a walk-on, he said. The Union-Middlesex game presents him one last opportunity to play football with some of the best just-graduated players from Union County.

"I'm going to a school where there is no football, so this will be my last football activity ever," Binkiewicz said.

One of Binkiewicz's signature plays from his senior season last fall came in the season-opener at Cranford. It was a Saturday night game, with Cranford playing its first game on its brand new field turf surface. Then in the final period, the lights stopped working.

When the lights went out with 5:44 left in the fourth quarter, the announcer kept on saying to everyone in attendance, "remain calm, remain calm." That's exactly what Binkiewicz did when it came time to make the biggest play of the game.

When it appeared that Cranford junior running back Sean Trotter was about to score the go-ahead touchdown after running with a catch he made at midfield, Binkiewicz not only caught up to him, but managed to strip the ball away from Trotter before he brought him down. Scotch Plains came back to win, 26-24.

"I thought they had us beat, and Gary just never gave up on the play," Scotch Plains head coach Steve Ciccotelli said. "It just proves that if you keep playing and play hard, good things could happen."

Proceeds for the Union-Middlesex game will benefit the Children's Specialized Hospital in Mountainside and the Lakeview School for Cerebral Palsy in Edison. The game has raised nearly $300,000 since its debut in 1994.