Sunday, September 28, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Jimmy Buehler hauling in a pass for a 44-yard gain that put Pascack Valley in position for a field goal en route to a 24-7 win at Ramsey.

RAMSEY -- The calling card of the Pascack Valley football team, at least in the last four years when it has made deep forays into the state playoffs, has been its defense. The Indians of the past were comfortable playing the field position game, pounding away with the ground game while hoping that one of their talented running backs could squirt free for a long one.

This year the defense is just as stingy, but you almost had to rub your eyes to make sure that it really was the Pascack Valley offense that was on the field when the Indians had the ball on Saturday at Ramsey.

After the defense made it usual contribution when Matt Beusser returned a fumble 22 yards for a touchdown that foiled Ramsey’s first possession and gave Pascack Valley an early lead to work with, the Indians’ offense showed off its diverse options on the way to a 24-7 win and a 3-0 start to the season.

The Indians rotated three quarterbacks with juniors Mike Loganchuk, Chris Hart and Tommy Corra all taking snaps. And, with Ramsey gearing up to stop the run, the three-headed quarterback system was given the green light to throw the ball. Whereas in years past, Pascack Valley would have been in trouble if it could not get its running game untracked, it is not so this year.

Ramsey running back Joey Marafino looking for running room.

“We had to open it up a little bit because Ramsey shut down our running game. Give Ramsey a lot of credit, they did a nice job against the run and we had to adjust,” said Pascack Valley head coach Craig Neilsen. “The thing is this year we have more options to go to, more so than we have had in the past years. Each of [the quarterbacks] has something they do well and we try to utilize their strengths.”

Loganchuk is the most accomplished passer of the group, Corra is the best athlete of the group who can get to the edges and throw the ball with zip and Hart is a hybrid of the other two who can use his feet to get to a passing lane.

It was Hart that made the first strike downfield when lofted a perfect pass just over the outstretched hands of a Ramsey defensive back. Jimmy Buehler ran under it in the middle of the field for a 44-yard gain that moved the Indians to the Ramsey 13. Four plays later, Kyle Hartwick kicked a 29-yard field goal that gave PV a 10-0 lead with 38 seconds left to play in the first quarter.

It was Loganchuk who did the most damage through the air, however. He completed 7 of his 10 passes for 134 yards and two scores against one interception. He was most impressive in the two-minute drill at the end of the first half.

Ramsey had gotten an interception by John Capuano deep in its own end, took over with 1:52 in the second quarter and moved into Pascack Valley territory on a 12-yard run by John Cohen and 33-yard pass from Anthony Ligregni to Capuano up the right sideline. But Buehler stepped in front of Ligregni’s next pass and gave the Indians the ball back on the Ramsey 48 with 1:08 left in the half.

Paul Koehler hauling in one of his two touchdown passes for PV.

“We just come out and try to be physical, focus on our assignments and force their offense into mistakes and then take advantage of them,” said Buehler, a senior. “It’s one week at a time and every game is so important, so we know we have to be at our best and play our hardest every time we go out there.”

Loganchuk then connected on three straight passes, the first to Alex Parenta for 18 yards, the next to Paul Koehler, who picked up 9 yards and got out of bounds at the Ramsey 24 with 48 seconds left. On the next play, Loganchuk got all of the time he needed to pick out Koehler cutting across the middle of the field for a score 10 seconds later. Hartwick, who was 3 for 3 on extra points, nailed the point after to give Pascack Valley a comfortable 17-0 lead at the break.

“Pascack Valley is a tough team. Take their talent out of it for a second, Coach [Nielsen] runs a great program and whatever else they bring, you know they are going to play hard,” said Ramsey head coach Vic Tribuzio. “But they also have some very good football players and they present a lot of problems. Our kids played hard today, they went after, so effort is not the problem. We just made to many mistakes today.”

Ramsey's Kenny Major broke up the shutout on this run in the fourth quarter.

Loganchuk and Koehler hooked up one more time for a 50-yard touchdown up the right sideline 13 seconds before the end of the third quarter to put Pascack Valley up 24-0 and pave the way for the second unit to play just about the entire fourth quarter.

“The coaches prepare us for all different kind of situations and we all have to be ready for however they want to use us. You just have to stay focused throughout the game,” said Loganchuk. “They played a lot of man-to-man against us today and that means you have to know where you are throwing it. It’s a matter of reading the defense well, making a decision and choosing your passes wisely.”

Like the snaps for the quarterbacks, Pascack Valley spreads it offense around. Corra had 18 yards rushing while lining up as the shotgun quarterback, caught a passes from Loganchuk for 22 yards, handled the punting duties, returned punts and made five tackles on defense. Koehler had four catches for 89 yards and the two scores and Buehler, Pat Chirchirillo and Parenta each caught a pass. After being mostly bottled up in the first half, Kevin Rems finished with 13 carries for 55 yards.

Ramsey played well enough on defense, holding PV’s starting offense to 17 points, but was unable to get anything going when in possession of the ball. The Rams’ lone score was set up Doug Nemeth’s punt block that set the offense up on the PV 13-yard line with 7:47 to play in the game. On fourth-and-2 from the PV five, Kenny Major found room on the left side and burst into the end zone to break up the shutout.

Tommy Corra did a little bit of everything for Pascack Valley, which improved to 3-0 on the season.

Pascack Valley will look for its fourth straight win to start the season nest week when it takes on Bergenfield, while Ramsey, just two weeks into its season, and just a week removed from a win over Old Tappan, is at a tipping point. Ramsey will visit Northern Valley/Demarest, a 35-24 winner over Demarest on Saturday, next weekend in what should be a telling game.

“We are 1-1 and people were looking at us in terms of our upset win, perhaps, over Old Tappan and then we lose this week. So the question is really: What are we?” said Tribuzio. “Are we a bottom third team or are we a top third team? How we come out and practice this week is going to go a long way toward deciding which way we want to go. In this league, the good this is that there is no such thing as a sure win on the schedule, but by the same token there is no such thing as a sure loss if you take Wayne Hills out of it. It’s pretty balanced and all the teams feel like they have a shot.”

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