December
3, 2006
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| Derrick Stroble and Clifton's ground game was too much for Eastside in a 26-0 win in the North 1, Group 4 state final at Giants Stadium on Saturday night. | |
EAST RUTHERFORD -- Anthony Giordano has had a recurring thought in his head for the better part of the past five weeks. He keeps thinking he’s going to wake up the next morning and it will be the first week of the football season.
The Clifton quarterback and his teammates have been living a dream since 9:32 p.m. on October 27, 2006, the moment that Giordano made a dive inside the left pylon to beat Ridgewood on the game’s final play.
From that moment on, Clifton has ridden a cresting wave, one that finally crashed ashore on Saturday night in Giants Stadium with full force, crushing an Eastside team that had previously defeated them and leaving only the Mustangs standing.
For the first time since 1973, the words Clifton and football champions can co-exist in the same sentence, thanks to a resounding 26-0 defeat of the Ghosts in front of a crowd in excess of 8,000, with at least 75 percent Clifton backers.
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| Tahree McQueen had Eastside's biggest offensive play, a 43-yard scramble late in the fourth quarter. |
To have come from being one second away from playoff extinction through being an eighth seed in the playoffs to winning a championship, it has been an incredible run of nail-biters and heart-wrenching games, in essence a four-game playoff run (the final two regular season games plus the opening two rounds of the North 1 Group 4 bracket) until the finale.
“Our backs have been to the wall, we never doubted once,” tight end Nick Cvetic said. “We just kept fighting and fighting, and here we are, we won.”
“We had our backs to the wall,” head coach Ron Anello recalled. “It was us against the world. We lose, we’re done.”
They never did, and the run of close games seemed to give them an edge when it came to playing in the Meadowlands, an edge Anello could feel over these last 35 days.
“It’s a credit to the kids,” he commented. “They were determined, they were focused, they had a goal and they accomplished their goal. From a coaching standpoint, you always worry, but they had a little swagger in them and they were confident in their abilities.”
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| QB Anthony Giordano piloted Clifton to six straight wins that took them from outside the playoffs to a state championship. |
The ‘Stangs were on such a role that they even were getting good news on the medical front as fullback/linebacker Matt Davella, who injured his knee on Thanksgiving Day in the muck at Passaic, went from out of the game to cleared to play to inspirational leader and touchdown maker.
He scored each of Clifton’s first two touchdowns, on 1 and 2 yard runs, but just his presence in the huddle was enough.
“He’s our leader, even
as a junior. It was a tremendous boost,” Anello said.
“It been an emotional week,” Davella, who participated in practice
on Thursday and Friday, admitted. “The doctors first told me I couldn’t
play, then they said I could. I didn’t feel anything once we were on
the field.”
The first TD was set up by a pass from Giordano to Cvetic for 21 yards and a 14-yard reception by Rafael Polanco, the latter getting the ball to the Eastside 7-yard line. The Ghosts forced a fourth down at the one, but Davella would not be denied off right guard. Nelson Tejada added the point after.
His second score came with 3:58 left in the first half after a short punt. Louis Feliciano had a 14-yard run and Davella converted a third and 4 with a six-yard run prior to his 2-yard TD off right tackle for a 14-0 lead.
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| Gordon Harty took over at halfback for Eastside when starter Kumar Davis went down with an ankle injury. |
Eastside (8-4) was looking to halve the deficit, but Tahree McQueen was intercepted by Lamar Rodriguez, who made a nice over-the shoulder grab at the Mustang 1 and brought the ball out to the 17.
On a third and 9 with 12 seconds left, Joshua Texidor found a seam on a counter left and went 51 yards to the Ghost 10 with four seconds remaining. Clifton then lined up for an apparent field goal try, but Eastside jumped offsides, moving the ball to the five.
Anello then put the offense back on the field, and Giordano ran the exact same play that he scored on against Ridgewood. This time, he cut back at the three and hit the end zone before the defender could adjust.
“We were going to do a fake field goal,” Giordano acknowledged, “but then somebody jumped offside. I was like, coach, do our bread and butter play. It worked against Ridgewood, worked against North Bergen (in the playoff opener).”
That was a virtual dagger to Eastside, which was finding no offensive success against a Clifton defense that they had scored 33 points on in the previous meeting. The major reason was that McQueen had no freedom to be creative.
“We had to keep him inside our tackles,” Anello related. “Last time (the 33-22 loss in early October) we were getting caught inside and we couldn’t do that this time. We had to funnel him in get some help inside.”
McQueen was held in check, so much so that he only had four rushing carries. His only big play was a 43-yard weaving scamper with two minutes left in the game, but even then the Ghosts could not put any points up.
While the defense was dominant, the Clifton running game was sensational, racking up 302 yards. Derrick Stroble led the way with 85 yards on 19 carries, while Texidor (5-81), Polanco (11-45) and Feliciano (8-45) kept the running game balanced.
“I love our running backs. I wouldn’t trade them for anybody,” Davella (9-25) said of his backfield mates. “All of them have a lot of heart.”
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| Lamar Rodriguez had three interceptions help Clifton pitch a shutout. |
Eastside turned it over three times in the second half, with Rodriguez getting his second and third interceptions. The former led to the final touchdown, a 6-yarder by Stroble to cap a 15-play, 60-yard march that ate up 7:29 of the clock and ended with 10:29 to go in the game.
The latter came on the final play of the game after McQueen’s 43-yard run, completing an improbable run to glory for Clifton (9-3), though you’d never know it based on the team’s thought process.
“There was no doubt in the locker room,” Anello said. “The kids fed off people saying this and that and whatever. We were the underdogs, we weren’t supposed to do this. I’m glad everyone picked us to lose. They fed off that.”
It was also personally rewarding for Anello, who took on the head coaching spot two years ago amidst comments and asides from friends and colleagues that he was stepping into a no-win situation.
“I lived in Clifton, I knew the kind of kids down here,” he said, “and I believed in the kids and we went out and got it done. I think there’s still a lot of doubters, but I hope their not doubting us anymore.”
McQueen finished 8 of 23 passing for 80 yards and had 67 rushing yards. Jaron Davis had 9 tackles and Tim Stancil and Obed Rinvil 8 apiece for the Ghosts, who were looking for their first state crown since 1963.
Giordano was 3 of 6 passing for 36 yards, while Franklin Duran had 7 tackles and a sack and Robert McClear had 5 tackles and a sack.
“I kept telling the guys, I’m going to wake up one day in my bed and it’s going to be week one,” Giordano reiterated. “It’s been a dream, a dream come true. We’ve been dreaming it since we were little kids.”
FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS GAME OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.
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