THE GRIDIRON 4 – 2010

By Dick Engelhardt

The CUTTERS of Fair Lawn High, frustrated by being unable to score against Northern Valley/Demarest the previous week, came out firing in their spiffy new Crimson pants against the BULLDOGS of Passaic County Technical Institute last Friday night in Big North Conference (BNC) Division II action. Captains Bryan Turton and the injured Kelvin Rosario won the toss and elected to receive. Speedy Davon Johnson electrified the crowd running the kickoff back 93 yards for a TD and Fair Lawn led 6-0. After a Fair Lawn fumble, the BULLDOGS came back to lead 7-6. Our CUTTERS engineered an 85 yard scoring drive featuring runs by Corey Carlson, James Hegybeli and Steven Tatekawa behind center, Alex Callons, guards Max Jacobs and Matt Paisely and tackles Adam Polisi and Steve Sherlock. QB Kevin Osback dove for the 1 yard TD behind Callons, Jacobs and Paisely. Carlson slithered in for the 2 point conversion and our heroes were out in front 14-7. With 7 seconds left in the half the BULLDOGS tied it up at 14.

After captains, Rosario, Turton and Brendan Walis went out to meet with the PCTI captains, the 2nd half began with a Fair Lawn on-side kick recovered by PCTI and the BULLDOGS scored 2 quick TDs to lead 27-14. A 3rd PCTI TD closed out the scoring as Fair Lawn fell 34-14. The offense featured some fine running and a couple of Osback passes to Carlson. On “D” Junior Roberts was all over the field making stops and a TD saving tackle; Kevin Guy, Polisi, Dan Prigge and Anthony Tozzi made big hits and Turton made a TD saving tackle.

The win puts PCTI at the top of the BNC Division II at 2-0 followed by Fair Lawn and Clifton at 1-1, Eastside and Passaic at 0-1 and JFK at 0-0. In the other BNC Division II game, the FIGHTING MUSTANGS of Clifton High beat the GHOSTS of Paterson Eastside 33-12. The KNIGHTS of JFK of Paterson were stung 19-15 by the HORNETS of Passaic Valley in BNC crossover action bringing the BNC Division II record against outside teams to 2-6 (.250) The INDIANS of Passaic drew a Bye.

At the beginning of the season, following good scrimmages and the 25-6 opening day victory over Passaic, Fair Lawn fans were singing the 1959 Frank Sinatra classic “High Hopes” that won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in the film “A Hole in The Head.” Now our CUTTERS need to get tough to have a decent season. This Friday at 3:30 they take on the COMETS of Hackensack at SASSO FIELD in BNC crossover action. During 1959-82 in the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League (NNJIL) the COMETS went 16-7-1 (.696) over our CUTTERS. In 1959, Fair Lawn’s maiden season in the league, our CUTTERS won 27-6 and yet saw Hackensack take the title by half a game. Frank Bennett’s 1953 Bergen-Passaic Interscholastic League (B-PIL) champs shared the North Jersey, Section 1, Group III State title with the COMETS. Mike Alberque’s 2000 CUTTERS put up a whale of a battle before losing 14-6 to the nationally ranked COMETS in the States. Fair Lawn comes into the game 1-2 (.333) and has been outscored 80-39 for an average 27-13 loss. Hackensack is 2-1 (.667) and has outscored the opposition 68-34 for an average 23-11 win. With an all out effort our CUTTERS can take the COMETS. From here it looks like Fair Lawn 20-Hackensack 13. GO CUTTERS GO!!!