Bull Session Week Zero 

The first weekend of high school football kicked off last weekend, with many teams playing their first game. I attended one game this past Friday night, when Toms River North beat Northern Highlands, 17-14, on a late field goal. TRN dominated the second half after Highlands had a 14-0 halftime lead. The Mariners are a team to be reckoned with. Not as huge up front as they were when they won three state championships, but they’re big enough. And they are very athletic……With the threat of rain, I stayed home Thursday evening and surfed through many games on YouTube. The games I saw the most of were Pleasantville at Mainland and Vernon at Waldwick/Midland Park. Mainland won, 7-6, which brought up former coach Greg Toal’s line, “when we miss the extra point, it’s like we didn’t even score!” And it rang true for Pleasantville, who missed the extra point, which was the difference in the game. Waldwick beat Vernon, 49-41, in an offensive explosion. Waldwick/MP has a big, experienced line, while Vernon has a good quarterback in senior Nate Kimkowski. Waldwick’s sophomore QB, Will Dell’Aglio, passed for 295 and 2 TD’s and ran for two more scores, with teammate Luciano Mayer rushing for 173 yards…..I also watched the last quarter of Ramapo’s 13-12 win over West Orange. Ramapo was hit hard by graduation, but earned the win by scoring the last 13 points of the game. It’s on to Old Tappan, a game I will attend this Friday night……Another game I looked at was DePaul beating Red Bank Catholic, 35-28. It was entertaining, but I could have done without the announcer repeatedly saying “DePaul Catholic.” I know it is the official name of the school, but nobody calls it that: we all say DePaul……Other games I looked at were Shabazz-Atlantic City, Red Bank-Shore, and Boonton-Pequannock, plus the final seconds of Rumson-Fair Haven beating Tottenville (NY), the alma mater of Manalapan coach Dom Lepore...It would be nice if the Yankees cut bait with Giancarlo Stanton, and I am being diplomatic…..Last year, I had the Giants floor for wins at 2; this year, I have that floor at 6 and the ceiling at 9. And I expect the Eagles to win the division…..The worst parking situation in Bergen County belongs to Becton. A few years ago, I could park beyond the field behind a post office annex. But that was torn down for apartments, making the parking situation worse…Two of the best running backs for the North Jersey Catholics started at St. Thomas Aquinas, Chu Odoh at Paramus Catholic, and Ca’si Thomas at Don Bosco. In addition, St. Peter’s Prep running back Abdul Turay began his career at St. John Vianney….In case you haven’t noticed, Phillipsburg’s opening three opponents are from Pennsylvania, old opponents from the day the Stateliners primarily played an Eastern Penn schedule…..Top performances that jumped out at me, courtesy of nj.com: Passing: Lukas Prock of Hun: 17-27-378-3, Trey Tagliaferro of Bergen Catholic: 31-51-373-3, Connor Consiglio of Jefferson: 22-40-332-3, Justin Pimentel of Passaic: 13-22-323-2, Dylan Boehm of Somerville: 19-33-323-2, Jake Layfield of Pennsville: 23-37-320-3, Hunter Struble of Lakeland: 23-31-273-6; Dakota Lasater of Freehold Boro: 16-27-265-3, and Robbie O’Connor of Millville: 10-17-263-3…Rushing: Devin McMillan of Hoboken: 16-316-5, Ethan Valenza of Hopewell Valley: 19-267-3, Brendan Markovsky of Cherokee: 20-245-4, Lamar Smith of Gateway: 15-202-3, Jack Bronico of Mountain Lakes: 18-185-2, Chukwuka Odoh of Paramus Catholic: 14-183-2, Trey Alexander of Winslow: 9-172-2, Zamir Davis of West Deptford: 4-158-2, Sherwin Appiah of Sayreville: 9-156-2…Receiving: Christopher Connolly of Jefferson: 8-220-3, JD Teza of Hun: 5-202-1, Jaden Days of Millville: 5-10-2-, Evan Mishoe of West Orange: 5-128-2, Chase Johnson of Pennsville: 11-195-1, Edwin Hidalgo of Passaic: 6-182-2, and Jonah Carbon of Pompton Lakes: 11-161-3…. This weekend will have many games to watch. As screwy as things are with the transfer portal, I just sit back and enjoy the games…..It will be harder to look things up this year with Gridiron New Jersey shutting down: it was easy to find things with minimal clicks. But I understand why. It is an amazing amount of work to keep things current, and I can understand that by running my own site. We can only salute Jon Fass for many years of great service…… That’s all for this week! I will be back soon with more bull!