Mountaineers’ Homecoming Game
On Friday night, Oct. 20, at Suriano Stadium, the Montclair Mounties played the West Orange Varsity Football Mountaineers. With the Mounties led by senior quarterback Tarrin Earle at the Homecoming football game and helped to earn their win of 48-7. After coming off a win against Barringer, West Orange High School (WOHS) had only one objective: improve.
“Anytime you can have a win against a quality opponent it gives your team the confidence to play at the next level,” said WOHS coach Jim Matsakis. “Our main focus is to improve on what we did last week and take it one play at a time against a very explosive Montclair team looking to avenge their lone conference loss last season.”
“The only pressure is that this is another conference game with a playoff berth at stake,” said Matsakis. “In football we try to treat every game the same but when it comes to playing the best team traditionally in the conference the kids tend to get up emotionally easier (sic) than versus other opponents.”
Five minutes into the game, Montclair scored a TD on second down within 10 yards of the end zone, followed by a two-point conversion, taking an 8-0 lead that they would never relinquish. WOHS would later block a seven-yard field goal attempt keeping the score 8-0.
Early in the second quarter, Montclair would recover a WOHS fumble, only to have WOHS recover their fumble and run it in for their only score of the game, making it 8-7, Montclair. With 5:22 to go in the first half, Montclair would score another touchdown, taking a 15-7 lead.
During halftime, WOHS announced the king and queen and honorary king and queen of the 2017 WOHS Homecoming. The honorary king and queen was Ronald Rivers and Karen Kong. The nominees for king were Dane Clarke II, Thomas Hughes, and Marc Younker. For queen the nominees were Kaycie Elfani, Kefi Mutume-Segwati, and Isabel Oden. The winners were Dane Clarke II and Isabel Oden.
With halftime concluded, 15 seconds into the second half, Montclair would pass to wide receiver and cornerback, Charles Murphy Jr. for another touchdown, but a blocked extra point would round the score out to 21-7. Montclair would dish another blow three minutes later with another touchdown and two-point conversion, taking a 29-7 lead. Two minutes later, Montclair would score again from the 33-yard line, taking a 35-7 lead after a missed extra point, and do it again with 3 minutes to go in the third quarter, taking a 43-7 lead.
Montclair would score five minutes into the fourth quarter to seal the score at 48-7. After intercepting a pass with 3 minutes to go in the game, Montclair would burn the clock down for the remainder of the game.
