New Jersey
Plainfield High School (New Jersey) announces 2025 football schedule
Football schedules for the 2025 season are starting to be announced all across the Garden State and High School On SI New Jersey will share these as we see them.
Plainfield High School, under the direction of first-year head coach Donald Jones, a Plainfield alumnus and former defensive back with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and the New England Patriots, has announced its 2025 schedule.
The big news surrounding Plainfield’s upcoming schedule is that the annual Thanksgiving Day game vs. Westfield, a rivalry that was the state’s third-longest Turkey Day matchup, dating back to 1899 during the William McKinley Administration, will be played as the season opener in 2025 for both teams on August 28 in Plainfield.
The reason for switching the traditional Thanksgiving Day game vs. Plainfield to the season opener has to do with the ever-expanding NJSIAA state playoffs. The New Jersey high school football playoffs in 2025 will begin on November 7 or 8, for the first round, with the state finals potentially being played at MetLife Stadium or Rutgers University between November 28 and December 3, according to the NJSIAA. This year, Thanksgiving Day will fall on November 27.
“They’ve extended the state playoffs so long that it became a safety concern,” said Westfield High School Director of Athletics James DeSarno. “This was a mutual decision between Plainfield High School and ourselves and one that was made in the interest of safety.”
Westfield leads the all-time series 66-46-7 but the Cardinals snapped the Blue Devils’ 13-game winning streak in the series last season, claiming its first win since 2011 with a hard-fought 14-9 defensive battle on a rain-soaked field in Westfield.
This year’s season-opening tilt vs. Westfield is the first of three straight home games at the historic Hub Stein Sports Complex Stadium, as the Cardinals will then host New Brunswick on September 5 and Woodbridge on September 12. Plainfield’s first road test comes on September 19 at Perth Amboy, followed by another road game the following week at the Haverford School in Pennsylvania on September 27.
After that it’s home tests vs. Franklin (October 3) and Colonia (October 10), before closing out the regular season with road games vs. Somerville (October 17) and Linden (October 25).
Jones played collegiately at Lackawanna, then Youngstown State before being signed as an undrafted free agent by Buffalo in 2010. For the last three years, he’s been the wide receivers coach at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in nearby Edison, which hasn’t lost a Big Central Conference football game since November of 2020, a 31-game streak.
The first-year Plainfield mentor takes over a program that went 6-4 a year ago which included a second straight appearance in the NJSIAA Playoffs where the Cards dropped an 18-12 decision to Passaic Tech in a North Jersey, Section 2, Group 5 quarterfinal round game.
8/28 vs. Westfield 6pm
9/5 vs. New Brunswick 6pm
9/12 vs Woodbridge 6pm
9/19 at Perth Amboy 6:00pm
9/27 at The Haverford School 1:00pm
10/3 vs. Franklin 6:00pm
10/10 vs. Colonia 6:00pm
10/17 at Somerville 6:00pm
10/25 at Linden 1:00pm
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A severe thunderstorm watch looms over North Jersey on the evening of June 12 after days of extreme heat.
Nation Weather Service New York declared a severe thunderstorm watch for numerous North Jersey counties including Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, Essex, Morris and Sussex among other Central Jersey and New York counties. The watch is in effect until 9 p.m., according to the NWS statement.
In an hourly forecast from The Weather Channel for Paramus, there is a 74% chance of thunderstorms at 7 p.m.
High temperatures reached past 90 degrees in many parts of North Jersey on June 11 and June 12 as a heat advisory also remains in effect until 8 p.m., said NWS New York.
“Dangerous heat is expected to continue across much of our region through today, with several record highs likely to be challenged again. High temperatures are forecast to peak into the low to mid 90s across most of the area,” the National Weather Service said Friday.
A Heat Advisory is in effect until 8 p.m. across the state except for Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Salem counties.
PHILADELPHIA – Philip McPherson II, a 37-year-old from Riverside, New Jersey, was sentenced Thursday, June 11, to 78 months in prison for his role in a 2022 plane crash in Lehigh County that killed a student pilot, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Sentencing and charges for fatal Lehigh Valley crash
What we know:
United States District Judge John M. Gallagher sentenced McPherson to 78 months in prison, three years of supervised release, a $5,000 fine, a $4,300 special assessment, and $19,530 in restitution. Judge Gallagher also barred McPherson from working in the aviation industry.
McPherson pleaded guilty in October to involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, obstruction of an administrative proceeding, and 40 counts of serving as an airman without a certificate.
The backstory:
Court filings show that on September 28, 2022, McPherson took off from Queen City Airport in Allentown as the pilot-in-command with student pilot K.K. and crashed shortly after, resulting in K.K.’s death.
Prosecutors said McPherson acted with gross negligence, knowing he was not competent to fly as pilot-in-command. He had two prior crashes, nearly a third, and failed a reexamination for his pilot’s certificate in September 2021.
McPherson voluntarily surrendered his pilot’s certificate in October 2021 and let his Temporary Airman Certificate expire in November 2021, acknowledging his inability to meet FAA standards.
He admitted to flying with passengers without a valid FAA pilot’s certificate between October 12, 2021, and September 20, 2022.
Investigators from the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, FAA, and Salisbury Township Police Department worked on the case, which was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Robert Schopf and Special Assistant United States Attorney Marie Miller.
What we don’t know:
Authorities have not released further details about the circumstances leading up to the crash.
The Source: Information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
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