Summer brings us a lot of things. Hot weather. Beaches. Fishing. Boardwalks.
And goals.
Every high school football team has a goal.
Some goals are meager. Some are lofty.
Programs like West Morris, Butler, and Madison play for sectional championships.
This coming weekend, those three will get their chance.
Kinnelon will, too – but the Colts didn’t exactly plan on getting here. Oh, the Colts hoped for a big year. But they are in new territory – and they know it.
Coach Dustin Grande’s team expected some good things … but this good?
But here they are, ready to make the short trip down Route 23 to face Butler Friday night at 7. Kinnelon’s Soren Porada, one of Morris County’s best all-around players, was 16 for 126 rushing with a 42-yard touchdown, caught two passes, including a 73-yard touchdown, and intercepted a Kittatinny pass in a 37-7 victory.
Playing in a sectional final wasn’t exactly on the Colts agenda this past summer.
“We lost a good senior class,” Porada said. “We were not not expecting to do well. We had a good senior class this year, but the juniors and some sophomores … I’m surprised how well they are learning. It’s great to see the team come together. I was scared we weren’t going to fill the senior’s shoes from last year, but clearly something is working and we are doing our jobs right.”
Coach Dustin Grande was an unconventional hire in 2022 – literally hired out of the town’s midget football program. He’d never coached high school before, but he has already done wonders not only this year – the Colts are 10-1 – but he has done wonders since he took the job four years ago.
Kinnelon has one sectional championship (2012 under Kevin White) but has struggled over the years. Grande told me that since the program was established, it had won just 37 percent of its games.
So this past summer, the program didn’t exactly set the same standards as a West Morris, a Butler, or a Madison.
“Our goals were a little different,” Porada said. “Grande wants to reshape Kinnelon football.”
Indeed, he already has. In his first year, he brought in the Power T formation and the Colts stunned Park Ridge in the playoffs. In four years, Grande’s record is 26-14.
“Kinnelon was never a crazy powerhouse,” Porada said. “He came in wanting to change the tone and mood of Kinnelon football and make us someone to watch out for. If you told me we’d be where we are, I wouldn’t have said, ‘No,’ but it would have been hard to believe. But with coach Grande, anything is possible.”
Grande loves the running game like no other coach. The team keeps pounding away with a line that includes Brayden McCormick, Kirin Kiesel, Kareem Abudaya, Landon Smith, Anthony Manna and Braden Whalen.
Kinnelon’s running game has yielded 2,866 yards and 29 TDs on 441 carries and is led by QB Matt Siciliano (127 for 861 rushing, 14 TDs), Wyatt Sisco (142 for 844, 6 TDs), and Porada (95 for 656, 3 TDs rushing, 15 receptions for 383 yards, 6 TDs).
“Props to the O-Line, Porada said. “The second the hole opens up, you’re guaranteed four yards if you just get behind the guys who block. We are nothing without the O-Line.”
While Kinnelon is gunning for its second sectional championship, Butler will be going for its
10th. Coach Jason Luciani’s Bulldogs are the defending North 1, Group I champion.
The Bulldogs hammered New Milford in the semifinals, 49-13, and used motivation from where they stood in one preseason ranking by the Bergen Record.
“We saw a preseason ranking that had us behind teams we thought were better than,” standout QB David Smith said. “We thought we could get back to where we were. I could be wrong, but they had us behind teams like Hawthorne, Hasbrouck Heights, Cresskill, Rutherford. A bunch of teams we thought weren’t better than us. We deserved a chance. Don’t put them ahead of us until they beat us. At the end of a practice in the summer, we all actually saw it but no one talked about it. Everyone doubted us.”
And then Luciani brought it up at the end of one practice.
“Luciani said it and we knew what he was talking about,” Smith said.
Smith had a game for the ages against New Milford: 23 rushes for 310 yards and five touchdowns.
You read that correctly.
Smith is 172 for 1,353 rushing with 25 touchdowns. He is 76 for 124 passing for 1,186 yards and 15 TDs (just 4 INTs). So he has accounted for 40 touchdowns this year.
Smith took whatever New Milford gave him thanks to the work of the Butler O-Line, which consists of Cole Benicasa, Cristian Franco, Andres Harilou, Tommy Henehan, and Peyton Kibburz, as well as tight ends Ryder Higbe, Evan Croker, and Jayden DiNatale.
“I have a lot of trust in them,” Smith said. “New Milford had talented kids in the D-Line but my guys came through when I needed them. They’ll put their bodies on the line. I have all the trust in the world in them.”
