Last year, Monmouth-Roseville shell-shocked Princeton 31-3.

The Titans shelled the Tigers again Friday night at Bryant Field, but it may not have been a shock in their eyes.

Mon-Rose scored four times to take a 29-0 lead early in the fourth quarter on the way to a 36-8 victory to spoil the 2025 Princeton homecoming game.

“It’s big. We did the same thing last year. Just steps hopefully to a conference title,” Mon-Rose quarterback Clay Casteel said.

“We had a good game plan all week. They did a lot of formations coming into this game. I think we did a great job prepping for it.

“We kind of just played our football – dominance and played physical, played fast.”

The win puts the defending Three Rivers East champion Titans back in the driver’s seat at 3-0 in the league, 5-0 overall.

“We talked about rivalry. I said, well beating them one time in seven years, I don’t think it’s a rivalry. But beating them at their spot, then maybe it is,“ Mon-Rose coach Jeremy Adolphson said.

”Yeah, that was big for us. Once you’re a champion, you’re defending every time you’re walking out on the field, and that’s a heavy burden to carry, especially against a team like this that’s going to be motivated.

“I told the kids if we both play our best, we’re capable of winning the game. But they’ve got really good players and are motivated. I really had a feeling all week that maybe we could knock them off the ball and they may have trouble tackling our backs.”

The loss puts Princeton in an uncomfortable position of falling to 2-3, the first time since 2018, needing to win three of its final four games just to become playoff eligible.

“They’re a good team, but we didn’t execute on defense and didn’t come back on offense. When that happens, we’re not going to win. We didn’t play the way we should be playing,” Princeton senior Casey Etheridge said.

Princeton coach Ryan Pearson wore his frustration on his face.

“It’s the most frustrated I’ve been in a long, long time,” he said. “It’s the same fundamental mistakes over and over and over again that we preach in practice every day, and we come out and do it.

“Obviously, they’re very big, but you can’t take two steps forward and one step back the entire time. The defense makes a good stop. What do we do? We jump offsides and give them an automatic first down. It’s just constant blunders, and that’s on me.

“It’s my fault. All I can do is keep going back and try to work on it every day.”

After a scoreless first quarter, the Titans went to work in the second. They strung together two long scoring drives to take a 14-0 halftime lead.

Mon-Rose capped a 15-play, 58-yard drive that started in the first quarter with an 8-yard run by Lars Bergen early in the second. On their next possession, the Titans mounted an 11-play, 87-yard drive with Nick Huston scoring on a 6-yard run and the conversion to make it 14-0.

Huston added a 39-yard TD early in the third quarter, and Landon Montroy added a 5-yard score early in the fourth quarter to put Mon-Rose ahead 29-0.

Princeton didn’t score until Etheridge caught a pass at the line of scrimmage and took it to the house for a 55-yard TD reception. Etheridge added the conversion, but it was much too little, too late for the home team.

While the Tigers compiled 165 yards passing, Mon-Rose’s defense stymied their running game, limiting them to 26 yards rushing, 20 for Etheridge, who has his sights on setting the all-time Bureau County rushing record.

“Our defense was awesome. To the end, those guys were running as freaking hard as they can,” Adolphson said. “I was terrified of the (QB Gavin) Lanham kid and the Etheridge kid, because, man, those two guys are as good as anybody. They run so fast and run so dang hard.

“I was really happy with our interior run defense. If you can stop that and make it become a perimeter screen game even though they’re faster than us, it makes it easier for our defense.”