MHS football is balanced in win
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
The offense for the Montgomery High School football team has certainly been prolific this season.
In five games the Cougars have averaged 31.6 points per game, including a season-high in last Friday night’s 49-28 win over Immaculata. And while the offense can always be counted on to put up points, the Cougars’ defense has been holding up its end of the deal as well.
Montgomery’s defense showed just how stingy it can be in the opening half against Immaculata, when it allowed just seven points and other than a long 75-yard touchdown run, limited the Spartans to two first downs and 34 yards in the half.
”We have a lot of returning guys,” senior defensive end Darron Wallace said. “Our entire secondary came back from last year except for a couple guys so we have a lot of experience back there. I think that has helped us, especially against a team like Immaculata. They are a young team and we had a lot of experience, especially with our seniors on defense. We took advantage of that in the first half and the beginning of the third quarter.”
The Cougars failed to score on each of their first three possessions, but from that point on the offense was clicking. They took a 7-0 lead on a Chris Chugunov to Mitch Chugunov touchdown pass and then made it 14-0 on a Chris Chugunov to Tyler Young TD pass. After Immaculata scored on the long run, Tevor Schmidt scored on a 4-yard run to make it 21-7. A Chris Chugunov to Jabari Clemons touchdown pass made it 28-7 and another Chris Chugunov to Young TD pass made it 35-7 at the half.
Chris Chugunov finished the first half with 317 yards passing and four touchdowns. It was a complete half on offense and on defense for the Cougars.
”I just felt like we played a real good game, until the end,” said Montgomery coach Zoran Milich, whose team allowed two late Immaculata touchdowns and improved to 4-1 on the season. “We had some kids that got injured and that kind of hurt us at the end. We just have to get rested up. We’ve finally been healthy as a football team the last two weeks. We’ve been close to full strength.
”I thought the first half, besides that one long touchdown run, we did a real nice job on defense. There were a couple things we needed to fix. I thought we had our best defensive practice of the season this week and I thought our kids were real focused.”
The Cougars have now won two in a row since their only loss of the season to Linden and seem to be putting everything together for a strong second half of the season.
”We came out and had a great come-from-behind win against Westfield in the first game and I feel like we have just been riding the momentum of that game,” said Wallace, who missed the first two games of the season with an injury. “We took a tough loss against Linden but immediately after that we bounced back and said no more losses for the rest of the season.
”With this being our second home game we wanted to get a win. We wanted to get our first win at home and just keep rolling. We have had a couple wins in a row now and we have another good team coming up next week. Ever since that first game we have been riding momentum and I think we’re playing real well.”
Chris Chugunov finished with 321 yards passing and connected with eight different receivers. Young led the group with six catches for 120 yards and a pair of touchdowns. The defense also scored a touchdown when Brian Flood ran an interception back for a touchdown.
”Tonight Tyler Young was kind of a matchup problem for them,” Milich said. “They tried to take Mitch out and Tyler was a problem for them. Last week we had Mitch Chugunov have a big game and Zach Martin came in and did a nice job. Tonight we felt like we had a mismatch with Tyler Young with his speed on the inside and we wanted to take advantage of it.”
So far the Cougars have been getting the job done on both sides of the ball, making them very tough to beat.
”I thought we would have a quick defense,” Milich said. “There are a lot of veteran guys back. There is still work to be done. We have a lot of senior leadership on that defense. They don’t panic if things go wrong. These kids really fight and battle. A lot of them are second-year starters.”
For Montgomery, the goal over the second half is simple — get in position to contend for a Central Jersey Group 5 title.
”We want to win a state championship,” Wallace said. “That is our goal. We don’t know about the conference, that is all up to chance and who beats who. That could be out the window right now. But what we can control is a state championship. Come December we just still want to be playing. Our ultimate goal is a state championship.
”We play Scotch Plains next week and they scored 51 points against Ridge. We play Hillsborough which is known for putting points on the board. So we have some tough games coming up for the defense.”