ORLANDO − Don Bosco needs the perfect fit.

The Ironmen are back in Florida for a football game for the first time since 2016 to take on Edgewater High School at 7 p.m. Friday.

Edgewater is 1-0 and features star running back CJ Baxter, a Texas commit. The Ironmen are also 1-0, looking to go 2-0 for the first time since 2014.

Don Bosco has faced good running backs before. They see them in the Super Football Conference United Division – just two years ago Audric Estime (now at Notre Dame) was running for St. Joseph Regional. But stopping Baxter or any quality running back comes down to assignment football, which on defense means maintaining what’s called ‘run fits.’

“He has a good shake,” Ironmen coach Dan Sabella said of Baxter. “But he’s mainly a one-cut, north-south runner who is looking to get in gear and go. It doesn’t take much for him to find a crease and he can beat you to the outside and turn the corner, so you have to focus him back inside and fit him up.”

So, what’s a run fit?

Sabella explains it this way. Offenses are always trying to exploit gaps in defenses and run through those holes. Defenses align a certain way up front to take away some of those gaps, and the others are filled by linebackers or defensive backs.

It gets hard when these gaps change at the snap of the ball. If the offensive linemen start to pull, that moves the gaps they’re trying to exploit, and the defense must adjust. If a defense is twisting its defensive linemen, or blitzing a linebacker or safety, that means that the gap assignments - or run fits - change as well.

If there’s a gap for Baxter with no Ironman (or two) waiting there, it’s probably six points for the Eagles.

“That’s what our defensive coaches and our kids spent a lot of time on during the week, especially setting up those fits against some of their staple plays,” Sabella explained. “They are a big-counter team, a power team and an outside-zone team, so we want to make sure we have our fits ready against their bread-and-butter plays.”

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The Ironmen had an uneventful trip to Orlando. They left from the Ramsey campus at 4 a.m. Thursday morning and got to Edgewater (a school with more than 2,000 students) for a brief walkthrough at 11:30 a.m. They checked into the hotel around 1 p.m. and later ate a team dinner.

Sabella knows from past experience that taking a high school team on a big road trip can come with problems. He still remembers when he was at Paramus Catholic in 2016 and the bus carrying the Paladins defense broke down and was a good six hours behind schedule.

What Friday represents is a test of the Ironmen’s maturity. Don Bosco has not lost to a public school team since 2017. The Ironmen are the No. 2 ranked team in New Jersey with 32 seniors back, and are coming off an impressive 48-28 win over Archbishop Spalding of Maryland.

Those 48 points were the most points scored by Don Bosco since 2019.

“You’re never going to play the perfect game and we felt we left a score out there in the first half, but we felt good,” Sabella said. “In the second half, when we let them get back in it a little bit, we needed our offense to get the ball and eat the clock we really did that.”

Sabella pronounced his team healthy, hinted that star offensive lineman Chase Bisontis (committed to Texas A&M) would play a few more snaps on defense to help with stopping Baxter and noted the weather would be a factor.

It was hot and humid Thursday afternoon when the Ironmen practiced, and temperatures should be in the upper 80s at kickoff Friday.

Sabella is well aware of what his team has in front of it Friday night. Games against out-of-state teams are a test of a team’s resolve and courage. Don Bosco isn’t going to have a lot of fans there, the Florida refs aren’t going to do them any favors, and Baxter is the real deal. If the Ironmen leave Florida 2-0, they will have earned it.

“We talked a lot in the offseason about getting off to a strong start,” Sabella said. “We won the first one, but now we have to show that we’re mature enough to travel here and play at a high level and get it done.”