It has been an unusual season for many of the North Jersey Catholic schools, so far. Bergen Catholic has been humming along, but the others have shown themselves to be more human. St. Peter’s Prep was demolished by St. Joe’s Prep of Philadelphia down at Rutgers two weeks ago. It was so bad that I left the field late in the second quarter, with Prep down 42-7 and it was 49-7 before I made it to the exit. DePaul is 0-3, losing to Archbishop Stepinac of White Plains, NY last weekend. The defenses of both Don Bosco and St. Joe’s (Montvale) have been very generous in the first four weeks. The Ironmen have allowed 139 points for a 34.75 average and the Green Knights have given up 166 for a 41.5 average. These numbers are right off gridironnewjersey and they are not good. Joe’s have already allowed more points than the 150 they gave up last year and Bosco is only 33 points away from matching the 172 they permitted last year. I watched Bosco’s game with Iona Prep on Youtube and the Ironmen were killed with the big play. Their offenses have been fine, but their defenses are not up to the level of previous years. Now if Bosco can beat Bergen this Saturday, things are much better, but the defense must still show improvement….I forgot to put a couple of things in last week. One, I neglected to mention how good the Westfield band sounded playing Chicago’s 25 Or 6 To 4. Two, I meant to mention Seneca quarterback Jayden Davis running 99 yards for a touchdown, complete with a spin move on his own 5-yard line….On the flip side of porous defenses, Passaic Tech has allowed only 16 points in four games and host Ridgewood in a battle of undefeated teams and the #10 and #11 teams in my Public School Groups 3-4-5 poll….In a rematch of last year’s South Jersey Group 3 regional championship, Penns Grove beat Camden Eastside (then Woodrow Wilson), 7-6….I do not know if they will go from worst to first, but Hackettstown is currently 3-0 after going 0-9 last year….I mentioned last week that I did not know how long it has been since Paulsboro got off to an 0-2 start, but they are now 0-3 and I saw it was 1974 when they last started that way….After canceling the football season in 2020 because of COVID, Piscataway went winless last year, something rarely heard of in their programs. This year, they are off to a 2-1 start with hopefully more wins to come….3-0 Hopewell Valley had a phenomenal game from wide receiver Justin Klotz, who caught 11 passes for 300 yards, including 6 touchdowns. I didn’t know who he was before last week, but I do now….Another wideout who had a big game was Overbrook’s David “Hollywood” Haywood and the highlight was his one-handed grab between two defenders and running the rest of the way for a long touchdown….Wood-Ridge had a huge win, beating Park Ridge, 14-12 and Coach Joe Cutrona has the program headed in the right direction….Timber Creek had a nice win over Rancocas Valley and are currently 4-0….An exciting game to watch was Raritan beating Manasquan, 28-27, in overtime….Union City had three 100-yard rushers in their 31-7 win over Montclair. Damon Pallotto had 125 yards, Tyler Koffa had 100, and Mark Boyd picked up 130….Butler debuted their new field featuring blue turf this past Saturday night, beating St. Mary’s, 35-8….That’s it for now; I will be back with more bull next week
Many of the stats are courtesy of nj.com