Game recap: Fourth-quarter rally comes up short, Mounties fall at West Orange
Junior running back Justin Bernal (30) scored his sixth touchdown of the season and ran for 55 yards in Montclair’s 35-21 loss at West Orange Friday night.
WEST ORANGE (Oct. 15)—A gritty fourth-quarter comeback attempt wasn’t enough for Montclair in a 35-21 loss to rival West Orange Friday night, but interim head coach Pete Ramiccio said he can take plenty of positives away as the Mounties head into the final stretch of the regular season.
“Look, I’m proud of our kids, I’m proud of the way we battled tonight,” Ramiccio said. “Things maybe didn’t go the way we wanted to, and we’re going to have to work to get the job done these next two weeks because nothing’s guaranteed, playoff-wise, yet. But we fought against adversity, against a good team. If we fight like that against Livingston next Friday, we’re going to be OK.”
West Orange (5-2, 4-1 SFC-Freedom Red) used a pair of back-breaking long third-quarter touchdowns by star senior Mekhi Green to take a 28-7 lead, and looked to have put away a Mountie offense that had sputtered in the first half and missed out a pair of golden scoring chances in the second.
But Montclair (3-4, 3-2) finally came to life on a drive that began at the West Orange 40 late in the third period. Making his first career start, sophomore quarterback Drew Pfeifer converted a pair of fourth downs, one on a QB sneak and one on a 12-yard pass to Semaj Adams on 4th-and-10, before hitting Maverick Selementi on a 25-yard pass near the Mountaineer goal line. Pfeifer finished the drive with a two-yard touchdown run to bring Montclair back within 28-14 with 10:45 left in the fourth.
Kicker Gage Hammond then gave the Mounties more momentum, recovering his own onside kick at midfield. Pfeifer converted another fourth down with a sneak on the ensuing drive — MHS was 4-for-6 on fourth down for the game — and the Mounties got a boost from freshman running back Ja-khi Chance, who picked up a first down with a 15-yard gain. Pfeifer’s legs picked up another first down into the West Orange red zone, and running back Justin Bernal found the end zone on a tough six-yard run, his sixth TD of the year, to cut the home team’s lead to 28-21 with 7:03 to play.
But it was the electric Green who would cut the Mounties’ comeback short. Green, who had a kick return TD earlier in the second half, broke loose again on his next attempt and reached the end zone, though it was called back by a personal foul penalty. No matter: bulldozing West Orange running back Jekhi Williams carried five straight plays, bowling into the end zone from two yards out for the clinching score with 5:03 left.
The two teams were fairly even except for the outstanding Green, who racked up 378 all-purpose yards, almost half of which came on the two third quarter TDs that broke open the game — a 97-yard kick return to open the third quarter, and a back-breaking 85-yard jet sweep run after a Mountie drive ended near the red zone on an interception.
Aside from that, though, this was a cagey, tight affair from the opening gun.
West Orange forced a turnover on Montclair’s second offensive snap, but the Mountie defense rose to the occasion thanks to an Isaiah Holm sack and forced a turnover on downs. Defensive back Shaun Alexander ended another Mountaineer drive by picking off QB Zander Lipsky later in the quarter.
But it would be West Orange that struck first, Lipsky hitting former Mountie Saboor Karriem on a 13-yard touchdown pass to open the scoring in the final minute of the first quarter.
Montclair responded immediately, though. The sophomore Pfeifer (10-for-25, 122 yards, TD, plus a team-high 91 rushing yards) threw a strike to Holm for 32 yards, setting up a perfect fade ball in the end zone that David Thom-Rogers caught while managing to get both feet in bounds. The 13-yard touchdown knotted the score at 7-7 a minute into the second quarter.
Pfeifer started and finished strong under center, completing six of his first 10 attempts and four of his last seven.
“I thought Drew did a nice job for us as a guy making his first start,” Ramiccio said. “He was definitely wired up at the start, a little over-excited, and you could see it with some high throws he made early on. But I think he settled down and started taking the throws that they were giving him, and he was able to move the ball. We’ve got high hopes for Drew and it was a very encouraging start.”
The teams traded punts for most of the second quarter, but West Orange struck again before halftime. Green picked up a first down on a 15-yard catch-and-run and setting up Lipsky’s 29-yard strike to an open Karriem for their second TD connection of the half at the 3:01 mark.
Green nearly found the end zone on the final play of the first half, when he caught a deep ball as time expired, but he was brought down a yard shy of the goal line. But it would take just 14 seconds into the second half for the speedy, shifty all-purpose threat to get onto the scoreboard.
Montclair’s defense limited West Orange to just 144 yards of total offense in the second half, with 85 coming on the long Green TD run. Playing well were defensive end Elijah Halley (9 tackles), linebackers Max Haley-Coley and Adams (8 tackles each). Linebacker Jordan Williams, who took a tough early hit and battled through injury, had six tackles as well.
The result is an important one for the North, Group V playoff picture, as West Orange’s win jumps them up to fifth place in the sectional power rankings, while Montclair remains stuck in 12th place. The top 16 teams at the Oct. 31 cutoff qualify for the playoffs. Though the Mounties should be safely in the playoff field if they can take care of business with games against Livingston (3-4) and Orange (1-5), their defeat Friday likely means they will be facing a first-round road playoff game at one of the section’s top eight teams.
The game at Livingston (this Friday, Oct. 22, 7 p.m.) will be Montclair’s final regular-season road trip in 2021. The Mounties have dominated the Lancers since their initial meeting in 2009, winning 10 of 11 matchups and nine in a row. Their most recent meeting, a 33-13 Montclair win in 2019, was the closest margin of victory since Livingston’s only win in the series (44-43 in 2010).
The Lancers are the 19th-ranked team in North, Group V, and would likely need a win to jump the teams ahead of them. They have victories over Millburn, Paterson Kennedy and Orange this season, with losses to East Orange, West Orange, Roxbury and Columbia.
NEWS & NOTES
—Mekhi Green’s kick-return touchdown in the third quarter was the first allowed by Montclair since Ameer Holcomb of East Orange returned one 90 yards in November 2015. Had his second score not been called back by a penalty, it would’ve been the second time in Mountie history in which an opponent returned two kickoffs for touchdowns (Union City in the 2013 playoffs being the first).
—Saturday’s game was the first time all season in which MHS committed more than one turnover (they had 2), and also the first time the Mounties lost the turnover battle (West Orange had one turnover). Alexander’s interception of Zander Lipsky was the 20th turnover the Montclair defense has forced this season; the Mounties are +12 in turnover margin in 2021.
—Pfeifer’s 91 rushing yards on Friday was the highest single-game total for any Mountie ball-carrier this season, and the best individual rushing total since Jordan Williams’ 182-yard day in the 2020 season finale at Paterson Eastside last November.
—Williams remains Montclair’s leader in tackles this season with 61 (8.7 per game), narrowly edging out fellow linebacker Haley-Coley’s 59. Halley holds the team lead in both tackles for loss (6.5) and sacks (2.5).
—West Orange improved to 9-30 all-time against Montclair, with five of those wins coming since 2016.