October
1, 2006
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| Matt Gray carried the ball 13 times for 72 yards and scored a touchdown as Pascack Valley held off Old Tappan on the game's final offensive play to improve to 3-0 on the season. | |
HILLSDALE -- It was less than a year ago that the Pascack Valley defense found itself in the exact same position. The Indians' backs were three yards from their own goal line, the opposition had a chance to win the game if it could move the ball forward nine feet and, after going back and forth for the better part of four quarters, the outcome rested on the result of a single play.
The last time it happened was during last season’s state sectional playoffs when Sparta ended Pascack Valley’s postseason with a game-winning two-point conversion with 1:36 to play.
On Saturday it was Old Tappan that was threatening to do the same thing. Mo Ghotok’s one-yard touchdown plunge with just over 7 seconds remaining on the fourth quarter clock brought Old Tappan within a single point and, with the momentum in his team’s favor, OT head coach Brian Dunn decided to try to end the game while he had the chance.
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| Mo Ghotok scored with 7 second left in the fourth quarter to get Old Tappan within one point. |
“We had a chance to win the game from three yards out or start from zero at the 25 [in overtime],” said Dunn. “I liked our chances to get three yards to win the game.”
On the other sideline, PV head coach Craig Nielsen had been through it before.
“My
first comment was, ‘Here we go, Sparta all over again,” said Nielsen.
But this time the make-or-break play went in PV’s favor. Old Tappan
quarterback Kyle Jansen rolled out to his right on a run-pass option, but
with no room to run for the goal line and the lone receiver on the play well
covered, Jansen’s pass fell incomplete among two penalty flags that
would have negated the play anyway.
PV recovered the onside kick and held on for a 28-27 win, its third straight to start the season, and handed Old Tappan (3-1) its first loss.
“I give Brian [Dunn] a lot of credit,” said Nielsen, whose team has now knocked off OT three straight times. “He was trying to make a statement. Everybody is going to question him, no doubt, but he shouldn't be second-guessed."
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| Brian Mauthe (left) celbrating his third quarter TD catch that gave Pascack Valley a 28-14 lead. |
Old Tappan got off to a flying start when Jamie Rowe took a handoff on the first play from scrimmage and went 57 yards to set up his own 3-yard run that gave the Knights a 7-0 lead. PV struck back when a Matt Gray interception set the Indians up with a short field and, on a third-and-11, quarterback Anthony Carillo found Taylor Beh running down the seam for a 30-yard score.
PV missed the extra point and fell behind by eight points on the next possession when Jansen capped an 8-play, 78-yard drive with a naked bootleg around the right side and went untouched for a 12-yard score. Ki-Chul Shin added the extra point (he was 3-for-3 on the day) and Old Tappan was up 14-6.
But that was when PV took over the game. The Indians took 10 plays to go 52 yards the next time it had the ball. Carillo got the touchdown from 15 yards out when he kept on an option play then hit Gray with the 2-point conversion that tied the game at 14 with 2:27 to go in the first half.
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| Jamie Rowe had two runs of over 50 yards in the first half and scored on this run in the first quarter for Old Tappan. |
PV’s Nick Pescatore recovered a fumble on OT’s next offensive play and the Indians made it hurt one play later when Gray went in from 20 yards away on a counter trap. Nick Delsanto added the extra point, PV scored 14 points in 53 seconds and the Indians had a 21-14 halftime lead.
“That [fumble recovery] was a huge turning point for us,” said PV line backer Brian Mauthe. “It got the momentum on our side and, after being behind, it was good to go into the locker room with the lead.”
The lead grew on PV’s first drive of the second half. Gray opened the third quarter with a 33 yard run and, five plays later, Carillo hit Mauthe, left uncovered coming out of his fullback spot, in the flat and Mauthe turned it up for a 10-yard score.
“We said after the half that if we went down and scored [on our first possession] this came could be over,” said Nielsen. “We did that, but to [Old Tappan’s ] credit, it wasn’t over.”
The Knights’ got to within 28-21 with 2:42 left in the third quarter with a 10-play, 74-yard drive. Jansen scored on a third down scramble from 19 yards out and OT continued the chase. Dunn opted to go for it on fourth down six times in the second half and three times he was successful.
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| PV quarterback Anthony Carillo threw for two scores and ran for another. |
One of those attempts came up a yard short when Jansen was forced out of bounds after a nine-yard gain on a fourth-and-10 with 4:12 to go in the game. That gave PV the ball back and a chance to run out the clock, but before it could, Ghotok broke through the line and nearly took the handoff that Carillo was trying to execute. Instead, Ghotok forced a fumble, recovered it himself and the turnover led to the Knights’ final drive.
Jansen converted a fourth down on that march when he kept the ball on a sneak on a fourth and 1 and he followed that up with two straight completions -- one to Shin for 8 yards and the other to Steven Griffin for 15 -- to move the ball to the PV 5 with 30 seconds left.
With just one timeout remaining, OT managed to get off three plays. The first was a Ghotok run of 4 yards to move the ball to the 1, the second was a spike to stop the clock and the final play was Ghotok’s 1-yard score with 7 seconds left that led up to the deciding two-point play.
Jansen ended up 5 of 17 for 62 yards and two interceptions, but did damage on the ground with 42 yards rushing on five carries and two rushing touchdowns. Rowe carried the ball 9 times for 117 yards in the first half alone and finished with 130 yards on 16 carries. Ghotok, doing most of his work between the tackles, gained 96 yards on 19 carries.
Old Tappan will try to get back on the winning track next week when it visits Northern Highlands in a game that is not only important in the league standings, but also in the power points rankings in North 1, Group 3. The Knights, who finished 7-3 last season and were probably the best team in the area left out of the playoffs, are looking to turn that around this year.
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| OT quarterback Kyle Jansen scored two rushing touchdowns, including this one on a naked bootleg in the second quarter. |
“It’s nice to be 3-1, but that is stuff you look back on later,” said Dunn. “Right now it is all about getting better. We play a lot of young kids and they play hard, but we have to learn from this and correct some mistakes.”
Gray finished with 72 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries and also had two catches for 11 yards for Pascack Valley. Carillo was 5 of 7 passing in the first half and finished 7 for 12 for 91 yards, two rushing touchdowns and a TD pass. Beh finished with three catches for 63 yards and PV is off to a perfect start heading into next weekend’s matchup at home against Mahwah, which improved to 4-0 on Saturday with a 27-6 win over Bergen Tech.
“This was a big win for us. Old Tappan is a very good team and we knew it was going to be a dogfight and it was when you look at the final score,” said Carillo. “Mahwah is coming in here next week and that is going to be another battle so we have to have a good week of practice and get ready for another tough game.”
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