By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Chris Casamento looks at every week as a learning experience for his West Windsor-Plainsboro North football team.
On Saturday, the lessons that have been learned resulted in the Knights earning their first win of the season when they topped Hightstown, 18-8, in a game played in steady snowfall.
”Our kids are understanding how to play football,” said Casamento, whose team improved to 1-7. “They are understanding how to start a game and finish a game and play through adversity. We had three guys coming back with varsity experience and two have been injured most of the time. Tyrone (Parker) came back Saturday but then he got hurt again.”
The Knights jumped out to a 12-0 lead at halftime on a touchdown run by quarterback Josh Bloom and another by fullback Brian Zalma. The Rams got to within 12-8 before Bloom added another touchdown run in the fourth quarter. The win helped the Knights see some positive results for their continued hard work.
”That’s the silver lining in the whole year,” Casamento said of the way his team has worked all year. “The kids kept working hard and kept coming out to practice. You wait for kids to drop off and we didn’t really have that. Everybody has been coming out working hard. We had a tough stretch with Notre Dame, Hamilton, (Rancocas Valley), (WW-P) South and Steinert.”
The Knights came into the season with very little varsity experience. But those who had played have been leaders, as well as other emerging players.
”Jack Cunningham has been a kid that has helped keep things together,” Casamento said. “He had three sacks and batted down a pass and recovered a fumble. He’s the one veteran kids offensively that really makes an impact. We’ve been playing a lot of underclassmen. Josh Bloom is another with experience but he missed time last year when he was hurt.
”Our entire secondary is sophomores. Our sophomore class and junior class have been thrust into it.”
Casamento is hoping the experiences his team has gone through this year lead to more success down the road.
”We’ll take a look at everything and try to improve things,” he said. “Sometimes you need to get knocked in the mouth to realize it is not just given to you. You need to work to be successful.
”We have a lot of young players getting experience this year and I think we’ll be more competitive and right around where we were. We’re looking for consistency. This group has been as consistent or more as far as showing up and practicing hard every day.”
While WW-P North was picking up its first win of the year, WW-P South lost for the first time with a 27-24 setback at Allentown on Friday. Brian Scheonauer ran for three touchdowns in the loss for the Pirates.
Princeton fell to 3-5 with a 15-12 loss to Lawrence. Alex Mitko ran for one touchdown and connected with Eric Shorter on a touchdown pass for the other touchdown for the Little Tigers.
Montgomery dropped a 21-20 decision to North Hunterdon to fall to 3-5. The Lions scored with 11 seconds left, then blocked a Montgomery field goal attempt to end the game. Billy Eldridge scored a pair of touchdowns and Sam Oltmans added the other for the Cougars.
Hun improved to 6-1 with a 9-7 win over Poly Prep. Abdul Majeed scored a touchdown and Ian Maltz added a field goal to lift the Raiders to the win.
