Sunday, September 25, 2011

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Jeff Farina scored both of St. Joseph Regional's first half touchdowns as the Green Knights shutout Paramus Catholic, 34-0, on Saturday.

MONTVALE – Three weeks into the season and it is hard to spot a weakness in the St. Joseph Regional football team. Playing a heavyweight schedule that included DePaul and St. Peter's Prep in the first two weeks, the Green Knights made it three wins in three tries against playoff teams from last season, pitching a 34-0 shutout at home on Saturday against a Paramus Catholic team that came in on a roll and was looking to do some damage.

Through three games St. Joseph's has now allowed just three touchdowns as its defense has been stout and offensively, the Green Knights have scored at least 34 points in three games and are outscoring its opponents by a combined margin of 126-21. Against Paramus Catholic, SJR won the turnover battle by a 5-0 spread with all five of its forced turnovers coming via the interception.

“It was probably a good example of bend don't break today because I think we gave up some yardage. The five interceptions, obviously, was huge and they had some untimely penalties that also helped us with field position,” said SJR head coach Tony Karcich, who was not overly thrilled with his team's performance. “I just think that our whole approach this week was not as good as it was the first two weeks and that is to be expected because we were coming off a real good win over St. Peter's. Today I thought we were really sluggish coming out, but hey, 34-0...that's pretty good.”

Chris Maldonado was able to move the ball as one of three in PC's quarterback rotation.

St. Joe's didn't come out and lay a beat down on Paramus Catholic from the get-go, but rather just stuck with its game plan until it could finally break through. That came late in the first quarter when SJR scored twice in the span of 1:11. After a PC punt back SJR up inside its own 20, Jeff Farina took a handoff on the first play of the drive and broke got to the left edge. He got past the line of scrimmage untouched and made it the rest of the 82 yards without a hand being laid on him for the game's first score and that was where it started to fall apart for the Paladins.

When the got the ball back, it was in good field position at their own 42. A holding penalty on their first play of the drive made it first-and-21 and a false start immediately after made it first-and-26. Then Ricky Jeune stepped in front of an out-route to pull in SJR second interception of the first quarter and he returned the ball to the PC 4. On the next play, Farina broke through the middle for the TD that gave SJR a 14-0 lead with 18 seconds left in the fourth quarter and the Knights led by the same score heading into the locker room at halftime. Meanwhile Paramus Catholic's six first half possessions ended as follows: punt, interception, punt, interception, turnover on down, interception.

Paramus Catholic used three different quarterbacks in the game depending on the formation. Sophomore Steve Shanley is the traditional drop-back passer, senior Chris Maldonado is a bit of a dual threat and senior fullback Leo Krizanovic takes snaps out of PC's version of the 'Wildcat.' The Paladins moved the ball well enough, they just had trouble finishing drives, like on their first march of the third quarter. PC ran nine plays to get into SJR territory but were turned away on fourth down when Dejon Harrison was stopped on a fake punt attempt after having been successful on a similar maneuver in the first half.

SJR's Christian Stapleton running free on his 43-yard TD catch.

SJR then went 61 yards in the other direction, using seven plays to find the end zone again. Sophomore quarterback Spencer Aukamp hit Jabari Garvin for 27 yards on a third-and-11 to keep the drive alive, Sherman Alston had a 24-yard run to set up a first-and-goal and it was Alston who finished it off from three yards out to put the Knights up 20-0 and they broke it wide open when Christian Stapleton found himself wide open down the seam for a 41-yard catch and run that made it 27-0 with 1:35 left in the third quarter.

“We ran a play called 'speed' a couple of times to bait [the safeties] into coming up on that pattern and then I ran a seam route right up the middle,” said Stapleton, who was all alone when he caught it and untouched when he reached the goal line. “All I had to do was concentrate on the nose of the ball, look it in and tuck it and then take off running.”

After one final interception with Paramus Catholic (2-1) threatening to break up the shutout, Max Havlusch closed the scoring with a two-yard run with 4:07 left to play.

“The [offensive] line really got it together in the second half. At halftime when we were in the room we went over what we were doing wrong and we fixed it,” said Alston, who did the bulk of his damage in the second half. “They came in here fired up and they were loud about it, but we didn't let it get to our heads and we played a good game.”

Sophomore Steve Shanley is PC's traditional drop-back passer.

While Paramus Catholic will try to get back on the winning track next week at home against Old Tappan (1-2), St. Joseph is walking into a tricky spot. The Green Knights will host Paramus, a team that has yet to lose this season and is coming off an early season bye week, giving it an extra week of preparation. SJR also lost two starters during the win. Jeune went out with an ankle injury after picking up a first down on a third-and-5 with a 25-yard catch in the second quarter and did not return. Starting linebacker Dylan Moore, who had SJR's first interception after sniffing out a screen pass, also left with an ankle injury although Karcich did not believe that either injury was serious.

“We have a lot of confidence no matter who we play and that win over [St.] Peter's really showed what we could do and we did it again today,” said Stapleton, a senior. “We are just going to go back to work and try to get better every day.”

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