Salem Hitting Its Stride At Exactly The Right Time

SALEM — Kemp Carr, former Salem High quarterback and current head coach, hasn’t been too bad when it comes to predicting his team’s fate.

“I told people we were going to hit our stride in the middle of the year and it’s inevitable that it is what is happening,” Carr said.

Carr was right on target.

With Saturday’s 36-0 Central Jersey Group 1 semifinal win over No. 3 seeded Woodstown, second-seeded Salem (8-3) has now won seven in a row.

More importantly, the Rams will visit top seeded Paulsboro in Saturday’s Central Jersey championship game.

These two schools have quite a bit of recent postseason history.

Salem will be seeking its first sectional title since beating Paulsboro in both the 2022 and 2021 Central Jersey Group 1 championship games.

Not only that but earlier this season on Sept. 5, Paulsboro earned an 8-6 win at Salem.

Back then, few would have put much credence into Carr’s look into the future.

That was the second game of the season and by the end of the fourth, the Rams were 1-3.

Carr and his players never lost faith and began this current seven-game win streak the next week.

It’s been a remarkable resurgence not only this year, but in his three seasons as head coach.

Carr took over a 2-8-1 team and promptly went 0-9 his first year.

That was a culture-setting season because last year the Rams went 6-5 and lost to two-time defending state champion Glassboro in the South Jersey Group 1 semifinals.

Half
Woodstown 0
Salem 28
Highlights
S: Parsley 5 run
S: Parsley 6 run
S: Alleyne 10 run@cpsjpic.twitter.com/3LRjjRtBEg

— Marc Narducci (@MNarducci51573) November 7, 2026

Now the Rams have taken the next step.

“The team is playing on fire,” Carr said. “I like what we are doing on defense, we play at a high velocity mentally during the game most of the time.”

He also likes his explosive offense, but there is one problem — the rules only allow one football on the field at time.

“I got a lot of guys on offense to get the ball to,” Carr said.

He sure does.

One of them is sophomore running back Cashmir Parsley, who rushed for 141 yards and three touchdowns on 11 carries. He scored on runs of 5, 6 and 56 yards.

Unlike his coach, Parsley is not big on predictions, saying very little about Paulsboro other than, "I’m ready for that game."

He was ready for this one as well.

Parsley was a key player last year, but he has taken a major leap this season and now has rushed for 1,296 yards and 16 touchdowns.

“I worked out all off season to up my game and improve from last year,” he said. “We went out in the second round and I took that personal.”

As for the defense, the Rams have yet to allow a postseason point this season after opening with a 40-0 quarterfinal win over Penns Grove.

Leading the way was junior edge rusher Antonio Merendino, who was simply unblockable. He recorded three sacks against the Wolverines and now has 16.5 this season.

Oh yes, and one other note — he is a transfer from none other than Woodstown.

Merendino wasn’t very sentimental about facing his ex-teammates.

“At the end of the day they were our opponent and I believe every game is all business,” he said. “Every game we prepare with the same amount of intensity as any other game.”

The scoring

Freshman Sincere Gillis opened the scoring with a dazzling 51-yard punt return for a touchdown early in the first quarter. That was followed by the 5 and 6-yard touchdown runs by Parsley. An 11-yard touchdown run late in the first half by junior Adrian Alleyne made it 28-0.

Parsley’s 56-yard touchdown and Kai’Siere Muhammad’s two-point conversion pass from quarterback Desmund Thomas ended the scoring late in the third quarter.

Thomas was highly efficient completing 11-of-18 passes for 110 yards.

Salem tidbits

According to South Jersey football historian Chuck Langerman, this was 117^th meeting between these schools in a series that dates back to 1911. Salem, which also beat Woodstown, 40-7 during the regular season, now enjoys a 67-40-10 advantage.

These two teams used to meet on Thanksgiving, but that tradition ended in 2021 due to the changing playoff landscape.

According to Langerman, Salem’s Carr is one win away from becoming the first coach in South Jersey history to have 100 wins in football and boys’ basketball. Carr is now 99-69 in football, where he has also guided Penns Grove and Winslow Township. The majority of his football wins were at Penns Grove, where Carr went 74-34. As a varsity basketball coach at Penns Grove he went 137-68 from 2005-2013.

Final
Woodstown 0
Salem 36 pic.twitter.com/7YKlxaskmU

— Marc Narducci (@MNarducci51573) November 7, 2026

Wolverines showed marked improvement

Woodstown (6-5) saw its three-game win streak end. The Wolverines, who beat Highland Park, 14-10 in the quarterfinal round, doubled their win total from last year’s when they went 3-7. The Wolverines were division champions of the West Jersey Football League Independence Division with a 5-0 mark.

“Just how much we’ve grown over the last year (has been big),” Woodstown coach Frank Trautz said. “From missing the playoffs and being a three-win team last year to win our division and win a home playoff game, getting to this point.”

Trautz sees a bright future for his squad.

“We are a young team, and we have a lot of guys coming back and just the fight they have shown all year (has been impressive),” he said. “We have had moments where we needed to come together and had some tough games and they always answered the bell.”

Marc Narducci is a freelance reporter for the Courier-Post. He can be reached by email at cpvarsity@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Salem hitting its stride at exactly the right time