Published: November 07, 2009 12:30 am      

Forest Hills coach notches 300th victory

SOMERSET — At first glance, Forest Hills’ 43-6 victory at Somerset on Friday appeared to be like so many other Rangers’ wins.

Forest Hills broke off long runs for touchdowns. The Rangers hit a few big passes for more points. The defense nearly had a shutout.

The formula might have been familiar, but the result was a milestone, as Don Bailey earned his 300th win in his 36th season as head coach of the Rangers.

“First of all I’d like to thank God for giving me the privilege of coaching at Forest Hills,” said Bailey, who completed his ninth undefeated regular season as the Rangers went 10-0 in the LHAC.

“I’d like to thank all of the coaches and players who have been with me the last 36 years. Coaches don’t really win football games. Players do. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of good players at Forest Hills.”

So many that Bailey’s teams went 300-82-8 with 12 conference championships, seven District 6 crowns, four Region III titles and a state runner-up finish in 1994.

“They have a quality program, and he runs it well,” Somerset coach Steve Costea said after his Golden Eagles finished 3-7.

“More power to him. He has coached well. He has great kids. He does a good job up there.”

The Rangers appeared motivated to get their coach No. 300 and tune up for the District 6 Class AA playoffs next week.

Zack Glessner tossed a screen pass to Nick Dudukovich, and the back raced 62 yards for a touchdown on the fourth play from scrimmage.

Anthony Unger took the first play of the Rangers’ next drive 60 yards for a touchdown.

Dudukovich added the conversion.

In the second quarter, Dudukovich ran 57 yards for a score and caught a 36-yard

Glessner pass for another touchdown.

“You can’t make mistakes against teams like that,” Costea said of three interceptions and

17 Eagles plays that resulted in negative yardage (17 for minus-88). “They’re super aggressive up front. They put a lot of guys on the line of scrimmage. They blocked better than us. They tackled better than us. They just played better than we did. They’re not 10-0 for no reason at all.”

Forest Hills added Patrick Donoughe’s 41-yard field goal in the third quarter. Chris Moss caught a 28-yard touchdown pass from backup quarterback Justin Gdula to lead 36-0 through three quarters. Gdula replaced Glessner, who was injured just before halftime.

Gdula ran 1 yard for a score.

Late in the fourth quarter, Somerset senior quarterback Trevor Niemiec ran 10 yards for the Eagles’ lone score.

“We’ve been playing good defense all year long,” Bailey said.

“We’re a very aggressive defensive football team.”

Forest Hills used seven men, sometimes eight, at the line of scrimmage on defense and often stopped the Eagles in their own backfield.

Somerset netted 61 rushing yards after their late scoring drive accounted for 67 rushing yards.

“This team is usually a double slot team that ran a lot of option,” Bailey said. “The quarterback kept the ball a good bit (in previous games). Our game plan was to blitz and try to take care of the quarterback so he didn’t get out to the open lanes. Then they came out in the I formation. We had something for that. We came out in a 7-1 defense and that pretty much stymied them.”

Bailey was presented a plaque after the game and a list of his accomplishments was read over the public address system.

Rangers fans stayed long after the game to acknowledge the milestone of their coach, whose teams won have produced winning seasons in 32 of his 36 seasons.

Bailey has had 12 seasons with 10 or more wins and 19 with nine or more victories. His teams won an amazing 101 games in the 1990s.

So how does coach feel this group compares with some of those others?

“This is an undefeated football team, so they’re a good football team,” Bailey said. “But Double-A in District 6 this year is very strong. You can go all the way down to eight. There are a lot of good football teams in Double-A. It’s going to be a challenge to go out and win the first game of the playoffs.”