BHS Football Players Sign to Division I Schools

Barnegat High School seniors Nick SanGiacomo and Mike DeTroia put pen to paper yesterday and made public their decisions to play college football for two division one schools on what was one of the biggest and busiest signing days in Shore Conference history.

Quarterback SanGiacomo, 18, will be headed to Tulane while wide receiver DeTroia, 17, will go to New Hampshire. Both received full scholarships.

Their coach, Robert Davis, said both boys epitomize the well-rounded scholar athlete that division 1 universities are looking for.

“You have to not only be a good football player, you have to have good grades,” he said. “They went after it for years, and they got it.”

Davis’ relatively young and green team has been gathering steam since Barnegat High School opened its doors in 2004. He’s watched at least one of his players move on to college football for the last four years.

Signing day, he said, “is one of the great days of coaching – seeing kids move on to the next level.”

For SanGiacomo, it was a day long awaited. He’s had his eye on a college football career for more than half his life, he said.

“That’s been my coal ever since I started playing football when I was 10 years old,” he said. That was the year his family moved to Barnegat and SanGiacomo started playing for Lacey Pop Warner. A year later, his dad started the Barnegat Junior Bengals team.

When it came time to make a decision on where to go after senior year, he said, a visit to Tulane sealed the deal. The school and the team were “the best of both worlds,” he said.

“I love to compete, and football is just a great game in general,” said SanGiacomo.

His drive and talent pushed him to new heights this year. He’ll graduate with one of the top ten career passing yardage totals in state history.

His teammate DeTroia hit milestones, too. He became the first student from the high school to make First Team All State this year.

DeTroia, a multi-sport athlete who grew up in Barnegat, said he started playing football in seventh grade.

“I was always just an average player,” he said, “and junior year I really broke out, and a really good two years.”

DeTroia said he was weighing four college options when he settled on New Hampshire. “Walking around campus with the guys and the coaches, it’s where I felt most comfortable,” he said.

DeTroia and SanGiacomo said they have their academic futures in mind, too. SanGiacomo is thinking about studying business; DeTroia wants to major in history, and eventually become a history teacher and football coach.

And both said they would leave Barnegat with fond memories of their team and school.

DeTroia said he liked the fact that the Bengals were still the new kids in the conference during his high school career. “It’s nice to make history and know that when you do something, you set the bar for teams to come,” he said. “It’s nice to know other teams are going to follow in your footsteps.”

Leaving the team he played with senior year was hard, said SanGiacomo, but their season would always tie them together. “But you’re always going to have that close-knit group.”

Stats and honors

DETROIA:

                             Season                  Career

Catches                    62                       108

Yardage                   931                      1,621

TD Catches             11                         20

INT                            8                           13

• 1st Team All-State
• 1st Team All-Group 2
• 1st Team All-Shore
• 1st Team All-Atlantic City Press
• 1st Team All-County (Ocean)
• 1st Team All-Conference (B-South)

SANGIACOMO:

                                                 Season                  Career

Comp                                      177                         457

Att                                            339                        840

Yardage                                  2,575                    6,341

TD Passes                              22                         55

All-Purpose Yardage        2,990                   6,957 

• 1st Team All-Group 2
• 3rd Team All-Shore
• 1st Team All-Atlantic City Press
• 1st Team All-County (Ocean)
• 1st Team All-Atlantic City Press
• 1st Team All-Conference (B-South)