Game recap: Mounties shut out Bloomfield for second straight win
Senior co-captain Jordan Williams (6) had an all-around day in Montclair’s 38-0 win over Bloomfield Saturday at Woodman Field. Williams ran for a game-high 85 yards and a touchdown, while also recording 9 tackles, a forced fumble, and two interceptions on defense.
WOODMAN FIELD (Sept. 25) — Three first-quarter touchdowns in a five-minute span propelled Montclair High to its second decisive victory in a row Saturday, as the Mounties topped rival Bloomfield, 38-0, to improve to 2-2 on the season.
It was Montclair’s most complete effort of 2021, interim head coach Pete Ramiccio said. The Mounties had their most successful day of the season rushing the ball, gaining 267 yards on 7.4 yards per carry with a balanced effort shared by five primary ball-carriers, four of whom (Justin Bernal, Jordan Williams, Solomon Brennan and Drew Pfeifer) scored touchdowns.
On the other side of the ball, Montclair’s opportunistic defense forced six turnovers — led by Williams’ two interceptions and forced fumble — and allowed the Bengals (0-4) just 125 yards of total offense.
“We’ve talked about it every week, and this was the first time that we got a four-quarter game all season,” Ramiccio said. “At this level, running the football changes everything for us. [Jordan] had a great day for us on both sides of the ball, and [linebacker] Semaj [Adams] had a great day on defense, setting the edge and making tackles.”
The win was Montclair’s first shutout win in nearly two years, the previous one coming on Oct. 18, 2019, also against Bloomfield. And it extended the Mounties’ dominance against their former longtime Thanksgiving Day rivals: MHS has now won seven straight against the Bengals, 19 of their last 20, and boasts a 75-26-1 all-time record in the series.
Two straight wins should be a big confidence boost as Ramiccio and Montclair prepare for their toughest task on the 2021 schedule: this Saturday’s road trip to parochial powerhouse St. Joseph of Montvale (Saturday, Oct. 2, 1 p.m., at Tony Karcich Stadium in Montvale).
“We’re just going to focus on us this week,” Ramiccio said. “We’ve got to continue to do what we need to do every single day to get better. We know St. Joe’s is a very good football team, and we’re going to give them our best shot.”
Saturday against Bloomfield, the Mounties jumped on top early and never let up. On the third snap of the game, Bengal QB Charles Abplanalp’s pass was deflected by defensive back Maverick Selementi and tipped into the hands of linebacker Williams for a juggling interception inside the Bloomfield 35-yard-line.
Montclair picked up its initial first down of the day on a pair of short Brennan-to-Adams passes, and Williams took it from there. The senior running back ran over one defender and broke several more tackles on a highlight-reel 15-yard touchdown run to give MHS a 7-0 lead with 9:14 left in the first.
After a quick Bengal 3-and-out, Montclair’s next drive appeared to be stalling after a pair of penalties backed them up to a 3rd-and-16 near midfield. Quarterback Brennan rolled to his left looking for a receiver beyond the first-down marker. Finding none, and following the heady lead blocking of Williams, Brennan found a seam and sprinted 48 yards untouched to the end zone. The quarterback’s second long rushing TD of the year made it 14-0 with 5:42 left in the first.
Two plays later, a jarring hit from Williams forced a fumble that Jabriel Muhammad recovered, giving the Mounties the ball back deep in Bengal territory. Bernal cashed in with a 3-yard touchdown to extend the lead to 21-0 with 4:15 to play in the first.
Bloomfield’s offense finally got on track late in the first quarter as they launched a 12-play drive that moved inside the red zone. But once again it was the standout linebacker Williams making a big play, this time an exquisitely timed leaping interception of Abplanalp’s pass over the middle.
On the ensuing drive, Williams and Bernal then gained big chunks of yardage on the ground, highlighted by a 35-yard burst from Williams, before Bernal finished the drive with a 7-yard touchdown, his second of the day, at the 5:19 mark of the second quarter. Both RBs had their highest yardage total of the year, Williams finishing with 85 yards on 9 carries, and Bernal gaining 73 on 13.
Leading 28-0, it looked like Montclair had added a fifth first-half TD in the waning seconds when the electric Adams intercepted Abplanalp and raced 81 yards to the end zone. But it was called back on what appeared to be a questionable block-in-the-back penalty, and the Mounties instead took a knee to close out the half.
The fifth touchdown did come soon after, though. Pfeifer, the promising sophomore quarterback with a big arm, came on in relief of Brennan and picked up two key first downs through the air on Montclair’s initial possession of the third quarter. First he found Selementi for 10-yards on a 3rd-and-8, and later in the drive he fired a 19-yard strike to David Thom-Rogers on 3rd-and-6. Two plays later, Pfeifer then called his own number, pulling an option handoff and darting up the gut of the Bloomfield defense for a 30-yard touchdown, his first of his career, with 7:39 left in the third.
That kick-started the running clock, and Montclair relied on its depth to close out the win and the shutout. The offense did mount one more scoring drive in the fourth quarter, led by senior RB Melvin Wrice (9 carries, 35 yards). That drive ended with placekicker Gage Hammond booting his first field goal of the year, a 32-yarder with 7:25 to play, that wrapped up the scoring.
Defensively, MHS was led by linebacker Max Haley-Coley, who had a game-high 13 tackles. Williams and Adams each chipped in with nine tackles and combined for all three interceptions of Abplanalp. Defensive end Elijah Halley had 3 tackles, assisted on a sack, and recovered a fumble.
NEWS & NOTES:
—The six turnovers forced by Montclair’s defense is tied for its most in a single game since at least 2010. The Mounties also benefitted from six North Bergen turnovers in a 2018 playoff game. The record for turnovers forced by Montclair in a single game is believed to be 9, which happened twice, in 1941 against East Orange and 1935 against Columbia. The most recent known game with more than six turnovers by a Mountie opponent came in October 1976, when Kearny committed 8 turnovers in a 47-8 loss at Woodman Field. The most recent game on record in which an opponent had more than six turnovers was a 47-8 win over Kearny in October 1976.
—Montclair is +10 on turnovers this year, committing 4 and forcing 14, marking a big turnaround from 2020, when the team was minus-7 in turnover margin.
—The 38-point win is Montclair’s 11th-largest margin of victory against Bloomfield ever. The record series win was the a 58-0 win at Woodman on Thanksgiving Day 1946.
—Williams has 228 rushing yards on the season, for an average of 6.2 yards per carry. That brings his career rushing total to 1,246, good for 32nd all-time in program history. With his touchdown run on Saturday, he became the 88th Mountie to score at least 10 career touchdowns.
—Defensively, Williams is also Montclair’s leading tackler, with 37 on the season, just edging out fellow middle linebacker Haley-Coley (33). The senior DE Halley is third with 21 tackles, including 5.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks.
—Hammond continues to be an outstanding weapon in all facets of the kicking game. In addition to the 32-yard field goal, the junior connected on all five PAT kicks to maintain his perfect record this season (15-for-15). Hammond also collected six more touchbacks on seven kickoffs Saturday, helping the Mounties dominate the field position game; he has 15 touchbacks on 20 kickoffs this season to date, and as a result opponents have managed just 87 kickoff return yards.
—Looking ahead to their next game, Montclair will face a St. Joe’s team they’ve never beaten in five attempts in a series that ran from 1988 to 1998. The teams were often members of the same division of the old NNJIL during that decade, but the 2000 realignment of that league that split the public and non-public schools and limited the number of games between them. The Green Knights are the only school to boast a perfect record against Montclair since 1940 (with a minimum of 3 games played).