This week in Montclair football history: Nov 3-9
Montclair players (in white jerseys) and the Woodman Field faithful celebrate as Earl Vaughn crosses the goal line for the game-winning touchdown as the Mounties snap Westfield’s state-record 48-game unbeaten streak, 20-15, this week in 1973.
As part of our mission to celebrate the past, present and future of Montclair High School football, each Wednesday we’ll be taking a look back at some of the notable moments, biggest wins, and most thrilling finishes in program history from each day that week in history.
NOVEMBER 3, 1973: Earl Vaughn’s one-yard touchdown plunge on 4th-and-goal with 2:59 to play gives Montclair a stunning 20-15 victory over No. 1 Westfield at Woodman Field, snapping the Blue Devils’ state-record 48-game unbeaten streak. The Mounties limit Westfield’s high-powered attack to just 100 yards of total offense, most of it coming on Glen Kehler’s 55-yard TD run on the final play of the third quarter, which puts the Blue Devils ahead, 15-12. But the Mounties would take the ensuing kickoff and march the length of the field on a marathon nine-minute drive highlighted by runs from Vaughn (120 yards, 2 TD) and Bob Pinckney (117 yards, TD), as well as a trick-play pass from Dale Berra to Bob Ott that sets up the winning TD. The ‘73 Mounties would enhance their reputation as “streak-breakers” the following Saturday, when they snapped Brick Township’s state-best 28-game unbeaten run with a 38-27 victory at Woodman.
NOVEMBER 4, 1995: After more than a century of football games ending in a tie at the end of regulation, high school football introduced overtime prior to the 1995 season. That turns out to be a very good thing for Montclair, which uses a goal-line stand to edge Passaic, 29-22, in the Mounties’ first-ever overtime game. Needing a win to win to stay in the playoff hunt, the Mounties take a 22-15 lead on third-quarter touchdown runs by Shawn Plummer and Ira Williams. Passaic ties it up just before the end of the period, and neither team can dent the scoreboard in the fourth. After a scoreless fourth, Montclair scores first in OT, Plummer sprinting in from 14 yards out on the second play of the drive. Passaic is set up for the tying TD with first-and-goal at the one, but they’re stonewalled three times led by Korey Kirkland. On fourth down, the Passaic RB fumbles going into the end zone and it’s recovered by Montclair’s Justin Avery to clinch the win.
NOVEMBER 5, 2011: Midway through the first quarter of a 38-0 blowout win over Livingston, senior quarterback Khalif Herbin runs for a 15-yard touchdown. It’s his 29th of the 2011 season, putting him one ahead of the two legends who had previously sat atop the single-season TD leaderboard, Rikki Cook and Justin Ashe, who had scored 28 TDs in 2000 and 1999, respectively. (Daniel Webb would later tie Cook and Ashe, scoring 28 touchdowns in 2017.) But Herbin was far from done that season, and his eye-popping numbers are likely to remain program records for a long time to come: he finished the 2011 season with 43 touchdowns (in 12 games) and 258 points scored.
NOVEMBER 6, 1897: One of the longest-running rivalries in all of New Jersey high school football begins, as Montclair defeats East Orange, 12-0, in East Orange, in the first-ever meeting between the neighboring schools. From that point on, the two schools would play every single year, usually in the last week of October, until 1981. After the teams went their separate ways after that season due to conference realignment, it wasn’t until 2009 and the formation of the Super Essex Conference that the rivalry was properly renewed. East Orange has played Montclair 102 times, tied with Bloomfield for the most-played rivalry game, but no other school can even come close to matching EO’s 48 victories against MHS (the Mounties lead the all-time series 49-48-5). Montclair managed just nine wins in the series’ first 43 games prior to the arrival of Clary Anderson and Butch Fortunato in 1940. The legendary coaching duo went 30-12 against the Panthers, and the Mounties won 8 of the first 10 meetings in the SEC to take the all-time series lead. EO has beaten Montclair four straight since 2019, however.
NOVEMBER 7, 1964: In one of their toughest tests to date, unbeaten Montclair knocks off once-beaten Seton Hall Prep, 27-7, in front of 7,000 fans at Woodman Field behind a pair of touchdown runs by quarterback Ron Burton. After being pinned back near their own goal line for the entire first quarter — including a crucial fourth-and-goal stop by safety Burton two yards from the end zone — the Mounties get rolling in the second. John Tyson’s 36-yard TD run, behind the block of Jay Johnson, and a Burton quarterback sneak just before halftime pace MHS to a 14-0 lead. Tyson leads all Mountie rushers with 113 yards on 15 carries. The 7-0 Mounties extend their lead on a Garvey Craw one-yard plunge in the third quarter, and after Seton Hall pulls a touchdown back in the fourth, Burton ices the game with a 10-yard score. In their final real test on the way to a state championship and a season-ending No. 3 national ranking, the 7-0 Mounties outgain the Pirates, 315-176.
NOVEMBER 8, 1997: Quarterback Brian Roth throws for three touchdowns and runs for a fourth as Montclair destroys Ridgewood, 61-6, in a downpour in Ridgewood. The Mounties, who enter the game at 3-3, score 90 seconds after the opening kickoff on Justin Ashe’s electrifying 77-yard TD run, and they pour on from there: a pair of touchdown passes from Roth to David Tyree highlights an NNJIL-record 49-point first half. Anthony Perna runs for a game-high 121 yards and a TD, and the Mounties add insult to injury on Nigel Joseph’s 43-yard interception return in the fourth quarter that makes it 61-0, which at the time was the third-most points MHS had ever scored in a game. Ridgewood avoids the shutout with a short TD run on the game’s final play, but the 55-point margin is (at the time) Montclair’s sixth-largest margin of victory, and their largest in nearly half a century.
NOVEMBER 9, 1985: More than 4,000 fans jam Nutley’s Park Oval to see No. 3-ranked Montclair rally to knock off Nutley, 22-7, in a battle of unbeaten NNJIL powers. Nutley takes a 7-0 lead into halftime, but the Mounties fire back with two TDs in the third quarter to take control. Freddie Matthews catches a 22-yard TD pass from Tim Riddick, and then carries for a 2-point conversion to put MHS ahead, 8-7. Stephen Burke pads the lead with a short touchdown run and converts his own 2-pointer to make it 16-7, and Anthony Maffucci scores on a five-yard run in the fourth to put the game out of reach. With the win, the Mounties improve to 7-0 for the first time since 1966.