A loss often serves as a valuable learning lesson and the Brunswick School football team certainly learned plenty from Saturday’s setback against The Hun School.

The visitors from Princeton New Jersey came to Brunswick’s Cosby Field with a reputation for having a powerful, high-scoring offense, a hard-hitting defense and a team that has numerous Division I recruits.

Solid execution on both ends of the ball would be key for the Bruins to contend with their formidable foe, but a slow start didn’t help the home team on this day.

Behind their strong offensive line, sophomore Kamar Archie gained significant yards on the ground, sophomore quarterback Marco Lainez III had a good amount of time to throw and Hun scored early in often in this Northeast Prep League matchup.

Hun scored on its first four possessions of the opening half on its way to registering an impressive 42-7 win against Brunswick before a big crowd at Cosby Field.

Hun, which entered halftime with a 28-0 lead, improved to 3-0 with the victory, while the game was the season-opener for the Bruins.

“It’s Hun’s third or fourth game now, it’s our first true game,” said Wayne McGillicuddy, who made his Brunswick head coaching debut. “They’re loaded talent-wise and they do a great job. They are well-coached, all their guys know where to be. For us, it was one of those games of adjusting to the speed, adjusting to the size and rid of the game-day jitters. I think we were able to bounce back and have a little bit of the second half and I’m proud of the boys, they didn’t quit.”

The 2021 season saw the Bruins lose to Hun in its season-opening game, before going 7-1 in their next eight games to qualify for a NEPSAC Bowl game. Brunswick is intent on having the same scenario play out this fall.

“I told the guys, take a mental picture of the scoreboard,” said Brunswick wide receiver/defensive back Tomas Delgado, one of the team’s captains. “Let it sting tonight, think about it all day tomorrow and when it comes to Monday, we get to work. We’re going to get better and better and we’re going to learn. Last year, we lost to a very talented Hun team and we learned from that. It’s the same with this team. From now on out, everyone knows what they have to do.”

After Brunswick went three-and-out on its opening possession, Hun drove 75 yards in seven plays for the game’s first score. On the first play from scrimmage, the speedy Archie gained 40 yards on a run straight up the middle. A 5-yard touchdown run off a sweep to the right capped Hun’s first scoring drive, making it 7-0 at the 6:26 mark of the opening quarter.

The Bruins reached their own 41-yard line on their next drive after junior quarterback Elijah Cromartie completed a pass for a first down to senior wide receiver William MacGillivray. Yet the drive was halted when Cromartie was sacked by Hun senior linebacker Bryce Enlow.

On the ensuing possession, Lainez III, an Iowa commit, threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to senior 6-3, 260-pound fullback Dante Barone, giving the visitors a 14-0 advantage with 56.5 seconds left in the first quarter.

During Hun’s second scoring drive, senior wide receiver Logan Galletta caught a 32-yard pass from Lainez III. A Greenwich resident, Galletta was a standout player for Greenwich High School’s football team in 2021 and also played at Brunswick prior to transferring to GHS.

Galletta also started on defense for Hun, where he is a strong safety. He turned in a stellar defensive effort, helping his team slow down the Bruins’ passing attack.

“It was an easy transition, everyone here is great,” Galletta said of joining the Hun program. “They have been super helpful, helping me learn the playbook. They make it feel like it’s home, so it’s awesome.”

Hun was victorious in its season-opener against Mastery High School of Camden, 48-13, then beat Royal Imperial Collegiate of Canada, 49-6.

“We all come out here and we work as one,” Galletta said. “If we didn’t come out here and work together, it wouldn’t work. So, a lot of practice, a lot of grind and today everything we’ve been working on shows. Our defense – we’ve been hammering it down and running our stuff and getting it better.”

Senior running back Dom DeLuzio scored on a 13-yard run on Hun’s third drive, then Archie broke away for a 57-yard dash to the end zone, putting the Bruins in a 28-0 hole. Brunswick’s defense came up with a stop to end the first half, as sophomore defensive back Ethan Long recovered a fumble in the end zone with less than one minute remaining in the second quarter.

With Brunswick trailing, 35-0, Delgado reached the end zone on a 39-yard catch-and-run off a pass from Cromartie (97 yards passing) with 5:31 to go in the third quarter. Sophomore Oliver Reynolds kicked the extra point, making the score 35-7.

“All week in practice we’ve been going over what’s going to be there,” Delgado said. “In the first half we saw everything, but we weren’t executing. In the locker room we told the guys that nothing’s different. We knew it was going to be a hard game coming into it. We knew what looks we were going to get and that’s what we looked for in the second half. The energy came up a little bit, which is always a good thing.”

Indeed, as senior Ohio State University-bound Miles Walker noted, the Bruins must step up their execution against the tough teams they are going to face each week.

“We need to execute better,” said Walker, an offensive lineman and one of the Bruins’ captains. “We always say we have to do the little things right, but today we didn’t do the little things right. So, we have to come back next week and make sure we are doing everything right.”

“Everybody has to get used to the speed of the game,” Walker continued. “We have a few kids who are not used to playing at this level. They had to get used to the speed and they had to make sure they were doing everything right. They’ll come back next week better. We have to move on and come back angry next week.”

Archie added another TD run in the second half, while senior JT Goodman scored on a run for Hun.

“Offensively, they’re phenomenal,” McGillucuddy said of Hun. “Four of their five offensive linemen have Division I offers. They have two fullbacks who are going to Notre Dame and Rutgers. Their quarterback is going to Iowa. Their two tight ends are Division I FBS kids. We knew what we were facing coming up front and we put in a game plan that we thought we would be able to execute and put us in a position.”

Brunswick has to quickly rebound from the loss, as they will travel to Suffield Academy Saturday for a 3 p.m. league game.

“We are going to learn from this,” Delgado said. “We’re going to have a great week of practice next week and we’re going to have a great game next Saturday.”