Morristown Stuns Montville

After seven weeks, Morristown was winless. Losses mounted. 

So did depression.

The Colonials were beginning to wonder:

What is the point of all this? 

Why are we here?

When will the hard work pay off?

All of them hard questions – and all were answered against Montville.

Coach Casey Flynn’s team started the game off with big plays and then came through with even bigger plays whenever needed to post a shocking 38-28 win.

The Colonials came into the game having been outscored 253-75. Montville? The Mustangs were 6-1 and jockeying for a home game in the playoffs.

“I liked that the kids really finished the game,” Flynn said. “They have been working so hard all season to really finish games and, being as young as we are and inexperienced at the varsity level, this one felt really good and really special.”

Morristown has faced some agonizing defeats. The Colonials lost in two overtimes to Passaic, lost a lead in a setback against Livingston, and staged a comeback against Bayonne but fell short.

They were coming up empty not only on the scoreboard but in their psyche. 

“It was tough on the kids and it was tough on the staff,” Flynn said. “The kids are like, ‘Why are we putting in all this work and getting no result?’ I told them that football is a game that will never love you back. I kept telling them to keep grinding and putting their hard hat on and things will work out in the end.

“It happened to be against Montville.”

“We definitely had higher expectations coming in but things have not gone as planned,” quarterback Marcello Cervone, one of the stars against Montville, said. “Every week guys showed up and were ready to work even more. We were getting even more hungry for that first win and we finally got it.”

Cervone, a sophomore, played his best varsity game yet. He rushed for two second-quarter touchdowns (10 and 13 yards) and added a 37-yard touchdown that served as the backbreaker for Montville in the fourth quarter. He was 10 for 15 for 72 yards passing but did his real damage out of the backfield in the team’s triple option, running 15 times for 132 yards.

“He is a tremendous learner,” Flynn said. “He wants to get better. He thinks of the team first. Being a sophomore and with the schedule we play and the division we are in, every week is a battle field. The games are beginning to slow down for him. He is getting comfortable back there.”

Morristown was 34 for 249 rushing, led by a line that consisted of Kushmunder Singh, Gavin Janosy, Oscar Vasquez Torres, Jimmy Mohrle, and Henry Harding. 

The Colonials gave a hint of what was to come against Montville when Kayson Mills returned the opening kickoff 95 yards and Serafino Lifrieri added his first of five extra points.

On the ensuing kickoff, Lifrieri perfectly executed a pooch kickoff and  

Teammate Colin Sidhu recovered it. A short time later, Lifrieri nailed a 34-yard field goal for a shocking 10-0 lead.

“That was definitely huge for our momentum,” Cervone said. “It gave us confidence, definitely. The kickoff return told us we have what it takes to win the game. The rest of the game, our confidence was high. Then we got the pooch kick … we worked on that all week in practice and (Lifrieri) did a great job putting it on the money right where we could go and we recovered it.”

From that point on – all the way to the end of the game (Cervone’s clinching INT with a minute or so left) – Morristown took Montville’s best shot and survived.

And for the first time this year, the Colonials walked off the field winners.

A whole load of questions were answered.

Another big factor for Morristown was the running of back Mason Wesner, who had a 49-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter and finished 15 for 101 rushing.

Said Flynn, “Everything was clicking on offense. The line was moving guys, Marcello was doing well reading and giving, pitching, and taking the opportunity to do some things himself.

“The line gets all the credit. It’s been up and down with what we have wanted them to do. One gameplan might be a lot of pass blocking and another week, it’s ‘We are running behind you because we trust you.’

We didn’t do anything fancy against Montville. We have been practicing everything we have done since June and we need to be really really good at it. We don’t have to be perfect. And they did a great job in critical situations. 

“Defensively we knew they had good running backs (Andrew Baginski, Clement Hofbauer, Zion Cyler), good receivers (Brett Kunkel, Pete Matarazzo) and a quarterback (Jackson Gering) who can sling it. We had to find a way to put some pressure on the quarterback and make him uncomfortable and limit the run as best as we could and we did that.

“But we also needed special teams, because without having the start of the game that we did, it probably would have been more of a dogfight.”

Morristown defenders Joel Gordillo (15 tackles), Brian Padilla (9 tackles), and Wesner (1 tackle for loss) and Dylan Rocco led the defense. Jimmy Mohrle (8 tackles) had a big game, as did Janosy (1 sack, 1 tackle for loss) and Vasquez Torres (1 tackle for loss). 

“The kids were very excited,” Flynn said. “It was a big sigh of relief for those guys. I told them before we took the field, ‘We are going to roll the ball out and play. We will do nothing schematically different than what was talked about.’ So in all three phases of the game, we just played. At the end of the game, it all became fruitful. 

“I told them they have earned this win after the way they have worked so hard since June. It was just a matter of finishing and they executed and finished.”