ROBBINSVILLE — It’s often cliché to say that football is won in the trenches. Or that a game was a tale of two halves. But those would be apt ways to describe what transpired when the Robbinsville and Bordentown renewed their football rivalry for the first time in five years on Friday night. After struggling to stop Robbinsville’s rushing attack in the first two quarters, Bordentown tightened up defensively after halftime while also wearing down its host with a solid ground game to rally for a 21-16 win at the Steven J. Mayer Athletic Complex. “We were very excited,” said sophomore running back/linebacker Jose Santiago, whose Bordentown squad spoiled Robbinsville’s Homecoming. “It’s a big rivalry. We just played our game, just had to do what we had to do.” What Bordentown (3-2) did while collecting its third straight win was rush for about 125 yards and limit Robbinsville (2-4) to about 77 rushing yards. The momentum-shifting drive came on Bordentown’s second series in the third quarter, when the Scotties ran the ball six times for 51 rushing yards with four different ball carries. Santiago had a 10-yard run followed by a 6-yard touchdown run to give Bordentown its first lead at 14-10 with 3:59 left in the period. “We just thought their d-tackles were weak, so we just tried to overpower them,” Santiago said. “They get tired very easily, and in that third, fourth quarter we should be able to pound the ball.” Santiago said Bordentown noticed Robbinsville had issues with fatigue and tackling from watching film. What also hurt Robbinsville was that after taking advantage of two Bordentown fumbles in the first quarter, the Ravens turned it over four times themselves with interceptions in the second half. “We’ve got to be able to block. If we can’t block, that’s my fault,” Robbinsville coach Andrew Patterson said. “We’ve got to be able to tackle. If we can’t tackle, that’s my fault. And we’ve got to be able to protect the ball when it’s in our possession, and we couldn’t do that and it’s my fault.” Robbinsville has been a much more pass-oriented offense this season as it came into the game with 144 passing attempts to only 60 rushing attempts. But the Ravens felt they would have success running it more this week after scouting Bordentown’s formations and tendencies. That worked out well early on. Chris Naperkoski had runs of 6, 4, 10 yards on followed by a 14-yard run by Hayden Perusich on Robbinsville’s opening drive, but the Ravens struggled to maintain a rhythm. “They’re a very passing effective team, and we were a little surprised when they started running the ball, but it was working for them,” Santiago said. “But we just had to play accordingly. We had to shift the game plan, but it started to work when we started to figure out how to stop it.” What frustrated Patterson about the running game was that he didn’t see Bordentown change its defensive front in the second half. The Ravens simply couldn’t block it anymore or find holes when they were open. “They’re a good team, well-coached team,” Patterson said. “I thought we were on paper a little bit better, but it wasn’t the case.” The night started well for Robbinsville when Jackson Balling recovered a Bordentown fumble on the opening drive at Robbinsville’s 10-yard line. The Ravens then drove to Bordentown’s 21-yard line in 13 plays to set up a 37-yard field goal by Drew Schwartz. Bordentown fumbled again on its next play, which Naperkoski recovered, to create another short field at Bordentown’s 28-yard line. Robbinsville pulled ahead 10-0 with 5:27 left in the first half after a 17-yard catch by Noah Schwartz, a 2-yard run by Naperkoski and a 2-yard touchdown run by Perusich. Bordentown regrouped with a nine-play, 74-yard touchdown drive ending with a 28-yard pass from Thomas Lee to Khalil Bangura with 1:07 remaining in the half. Bordentown’s Greg Stalnaker had a pair of interceptions at the start of the third quarter and late in the fourth quarter. The Scotties also scored on a 20-yard pick-six from Connor Bramley that made it 21-10 at the 11:10 mark of the fourth quarter. Robbinsville responded from that backbreaking play with a 66-yard drive and a 1-yard touchdown run by Naperkoski with 6:17 left. The defense then stopped Bordentown on fourth-and-2 and again with a three-and-out, but missed plays in the passing game and two more interceptions — the last one by Jumari Glover — left the Ravens with an empty feeling. The Scotties, meanwhile, have rallied from an 0-2 start with wins over Lawrence, Maple Shade and now Robbinsville. “We just started to practice harder,” Santiago said. “We have a lot of young kids on our team — sophomores, juniors — but we just kind of built on that in practices and discovered what we can fix, and we just worked on that.” Bordentown (3-2) 0 7 7 7 – 21 Robbinsville (2-4) 0 10 0 6 – 16 Second Quarter R – Schwartz 37 field goal R – Perusich 2 run (D. Schwartz kick) B – Bangura 28 pass from Lee (L. Schwartz kick) Third Quarter B – Santiago 6 run (L. Schwartz kick) Fourth Quarter B – Bramley 20 interception return (L. Schwartz kick) T – Naperkoski 1 run (pass failed)