Sunday, September 11, 2011

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Eric Reynoso had 97 yards rushing and 4 TDs in the first half alone as Ridgefield Park opened its season with a 48-20 win at Cliffside Park.

CLIFFSIDE PARK – When the Ridgefield Park football team gathers to go over the game tape from Saturday's season opener against Cliffside Park, the players will have to live through some uncomfortableness right as the tape starts rolling. That will last for all of 22 seconds.

After giving up a 67-yard touchdown pass from Cliffside Park's Milton Araujo to Jonny Schmitt on the first play from scrimmage in the game, Ridgefield Park went on to dominate. Senior Eric Reynoso scored on a 43-yard reverse, and had two other TD runs of 7 and 9 yards and junior quarterback Alex Alberque threw a 37-yard touchdown pass to Christopher Fitzgerald to highlight a dominant first quarter. After Reynoso caught a three-yard score from Alberque on the first play of the second quarter, Ridgefield Park had built a 41-7 lead.

The Scarlets then started to substitute liberally and, with a running click in the second half, settled for a 48-20 win in Cliffside Park. And with plenty of optimism around the program this season, RP head coach Tony Gonzalez is hoping that win No. 1 is just the first of many.

Jonny Schmitt caught two touchdown passes for Cliffside.

“This is probably the most athletic, in shape and together team that I have coached in 30 years,” said Gonzalez, who pointed to one specific area that makes this team different from the others that he has coached. “It's speed. Speed kills. You can't make speed up. You can make weight lifting up, you can make up a lot of stuff but speed is a natural given talent.”

Reynoso has speed. He ran for 97 yards and scored four times, all in the first half.

“We did expect [to win big]. No one gave us a lot of respect, everyone kind of put us under the radar, but we knew how hard we worked and we knew the talent we had and we are trying for that league title,” said Reynoso. “It's really fun. Everyone is really excited, the team is excited and everyone wants to make that big play.“

Alberque, who got some varsity experience last season as a sophomore, is now the man under center full time and he led the Scarlets to touchdowns on each of their six first half possessions. He threw for two scores and a two-point conversion in the first half alone before being replaced by Liam Connors.

“We knew we we could beat Cliffside, but we wanted to get a blow out to show people what we can do,” said Alberque. “It's the easiest thing ever [to play quarterback when the offense is clicking]. All I had to do was hand off and let [the backs] run."

RP quarterback Alex Alberque threw two first half TD passes.

Cliffside's lone highlights came from the combination of Araujo and Schmitt. They hooked up for the touchdown on the Red Raiders' first offensive play of the season and they connected for an 18-yard TD with 4:04 to play in the third quarter.

But otherwise it was all Ridgefield Park (1-0), which faces another longtime rival in Fort Lee next week, the next step in making a run at the Big North Conference American Division title.

“This year, and we we haven't done it in the past, we ended up just showing everything in all of our scrimmages. We said 'This is what we've got, this is what we are going to do to...defend it. That is the bottom line,” said Gonzalez. “I am happy that we got out of here without any injuries. It was easy today for the kids to play with a big lead, but we'll see. It's about who wants the ball on fourth-and-goal in a tie game and you are on the 10-yard line. That is the attitude I want these kids to have. They are the ones that have to play the game. It's not the coaching, it's the kids' attitude and this team has a good one.”

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