Sunday,
September 29, 2013
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
|
|
Keon Banks scored three touchdowns, including an 80-yard run and a 40-yard punt return, for St. Mary, which improved to 2-1 on the season with a 58-0 win at Wood-Ridge on Saturday afternoon. |
WOOD-RIDGE – After running the table in the regular season and making it all the way to the Non-Public Group 1 state final, St. Mary's football team ran into adversity smack dab at the start of the new year. In Week 1, the Gaels had trouble with their kicking game, which led to a loss to Cresskill, an 0-1 record and maybe a doubt or two about what might lay ahead for a team that starts just three seniors.
But anyone who has even seen St. Mary play knows that knocking it off course in no easy feat. Using the Gaels sweep, the play which is obviously synonymous with the program under head coach Mike Sheridan, St. Mary marches forward and dares the opposition to stop it. The Gaels got it going last week with a comfortable win over Emerson and they will now go into next weekend's showdown with Queen of Peace on a roll after a 58-0 at Wood-Ridge on Saturday afternoon.
“We can't get that loss [to Cresskill] back so we have had to move on. We wish them the best of luck, but we had to get back to business. Now that this one is out of the way we can get to work [preparing for] Queen of Peace,” said St. Mary offensive coordinator Mike Coyne. “ Today was a shaky start but we wound up finishing because of what we were able to do up front. With the offense we run it starts and ends with the guys we have on the line and we are real proud of what they did out there today.”
The shaky start that Coyne referred to was really more of a momentary blip that ate up the first half of the first quarter. The Gaels had a 35-yard touchdown run by Keon Banks called back by a holding call and then a fumbled exchange resulted in St. Mary's only turnover of the game as it was recovered by Wood-Ridge's Frankie Altamura. Wood-Ridge proceeded to put together its best drive of the game as Nick Champino, the Blue Devils' starting running back, lined up in the shotgun, took the snap and completed a 17-yard strike to Ali Abnousi for a first down and Champino himself ran for a first down on a fourth-and-2 from just inside St. Mary territory.
|
Nick Champino was the offensive workhorse for Wood-Ridge. |
But that was the high-water mark for Wood-Ridge as Matthew Vettoso intercepted a pass on the next play and on the play after that, the Gaels sweep led to a 41-yard touchdown run around the right side by Anthony Pontoriero, a recent transfer in from Paramus Catholic. Kevin Wouples hit the extra point to put St. Mary up 7-0 with 3:03 left in the first quarter and it was all Gaels after that.
Keon Banks returned a punt 40 yards to make it 14-0 late in the first quarter, and Banks went 29 yards for a scored 12 seconds into the second quarter to make it 20-0 after Wouples' extra point try hit the left upright square. Banks scored on a 2-yard run to make it 27-0, Wouples went in from 30 yards out to make 33-0 and, after Derius Stone intercepted a pass in the endzone, Banks went 80 yards on the next play to make it 39-0 at the half.
“The line [Guy Madsen, Robert Belzak, Kyle Downey, Nick Kovacs, Anthony Doviak] and the tight ends [Jamie Van Allen and Juan Carlos Valletta] just kept opening holes and I got the ball and saw a lot of daylight,” said Banks, who finished with rushing three touchdowns. “It's a great feeling to know that you are going to have to room to run and I have to give the line a pat on the back because they made it all happen today.”
Of St. Mary's nine touchdowns, seven were scored on the ground, one on a punt return and one on kick off return when Pontoriero took the kick to start the third quarter back 75 yards for a score. It was a team effort top to bottom piloted by quarterback William Krajnik, who himself could be considered a lineman because the Gaels sweep calls for the quarterback to make the toss and then pick out someone to block.
|
Anthony Pontoriero, a recent transfer from Paramus Catholic, scored twice for St. Mary. |
“We worked very hard in practice all week so that we could come out here and play our best game. That loss [to Cresskill] helped us a lot because it made us realize that we are not there yet,” said Krajinik. “We are more focused now and we have learned how to finish. That was the big thing today. We didn't make a lot of mistakes that could hurt us and we finished drives when we had the chance.”
With the Wood-Ridge game now finished, the Gaels can now fully turn their attention to Queen of Peace, which handed Becton its first loss of the season on Saturday. While St. Mary and Q of P are both parochial schools, they are the old school kind not looking to play out of state competition in pursuit of national acclaim and a mythical national championship.
That game will still look like high school football and should be fun to watch in Rutherford next Saturday afternoon.
“We are not going to be fancy. If we don't have to throw one pass on a drive then we won't and it is our guys up front that will dictate how successful we will be at it,” said Coyne. “We can't wait for next week. We are going to fix our mistakes from this game and tonight we will pop in the tape on QP tonight and we'll get to work. We are looking forward to it and I am sure QP is as well.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS GAME.
TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT
OF THIS STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com. |