Dumont closes out one of its best ever seasons with win over rival Tenafly
       
         

Senior Devon Turner scored the game-winning TD for Dumont, which finished off a 9-1 season with a 14-7 win over rival Tenafly on Thanksgiving.

DUMONT – It’s a fading tradition in North Jersey, but it is relevant to those that still partake, especially this year when both Dumont and Tenafly have competitive teams in the same season for the first time in a while. Tenafly was last year’s Ivy League champion, Dumont was this year’s finalist and in one of the last remaining Thanksgiving Day games, the two communities turned out to take it in on Thursday morning.

And they were treated to a heckuva high school football game that was not decided until Tenafly’s last chance Hail Mary fell untouched in the endzone and Dumont celebrated a 14-7 victory that capped off a 9-1 season, the first with nine wins since the Huskies went 9-0 in 1955. It was also the sixth straight time that Dumont has beaten Tenafly although last year’s game was wiped out by COVID.

“These seniors are incredible kids. I tell them I love them all the time because I really do. They have guided this program,” said Dumont head coach Rick Burd. “A year after COVID and wearing a 1-7 record across the offseason, they said it was never going to happen again. They flipped it and I am so proud of them.”

Tenafly had a special season with a host of seniors last year when it won the inaugural Ivy Division crown. This year the Tigers showed up with 24 players in uniform, a 6-3 record and a competitive spirit that turned into an early lead after Kenny Uchida broke free for a 51-yard touchdown on the game’s first offensive possession to make it 7-0 and Tenafly’s defense made it hard for Dumont to close ground.

Tenafly senior Kenny Uchida breaking away for the game's first touchdown.

Marc Berschadsky picked off a pass to cut Dumont’s first drive short and it was not until their third offensive possession that the Huskies were able to pull back into a tie. A short punt gave Dumont a short field, junior quarterback Anthony Piccinich covered the final yard for Dumont’s first TD and Kai Balkum kicked the extra point to tie the game, 7-7, with 8:16 left in the second quarter and it stayed that way to and through the 41-minute halftime break.

Dumont, with the obvious size advantage up front, went 60 yards on its first possession of the second half with a Devon Turner’s two-yard plunge giving the Huskies the lead for the first time and their defense set about making it stand up.

Dumont held Tenafly (6-4) to a punt on its first second half possession and Jack Lockhart’s hit on Tiger quarterback Emmet Goldberg forced a fumble on the second, but Tenafly, and more specifically Goldberg, refused to crumble. The junior who plays both ways, picked off a first half pass, recovered a fumble created by Will Zinna as Dumont was bearing down on the goal line early in the fourth quarter and stood up to Dumont’s ferocious pass rush.

Goldberg took at least three crushing shots from Lockhart in the fourth quarter, but never stayed down for even an extra beat and was still standing tall in the pocket as the Tigers hung in there right down to the nub.

“He was the first guy I went to find when the game was over and I let him know that I respect him. He took a couple of good hits from me, he kept getting up and he kept throwing it,” said Lockhart, Dumont’s two-way junior lineman, speaking of Goldberg. “We worked hard all through the season, all through the offseason to be ready to play this game and all of that work paid off out here today.”

QB Anthony Piccinich led Dumont to its first 9-win season since 1955.

Tenafly struggled to sustain drives as it found it hard to move the chains on the ground and Goldberg was rushed every time he dropped back to pass, but made just enough plays to stay within striking distance with Zinna’s forced fumble and blocked field goal with 4:34 left in the game as Dumont was trying to take a two-score lead.

The Tigers hit a hook-and-ladder on a fourth-and-long to keep their final drive alive, the left-handed Goldberg threw one up for Ian Kim who pulled down a pass in traffic and Berschadsky snuck behind the last defender to make things really interesting. Dumont’s Levi Salcedo retreated just in time to get a hand on the ball to keep Berschadsky from hauling that pass and Piccinich was back on the goal line to make sure no Tiger got near the last second heave from midfield that was the game’s final play.

“We had a chip on our shoulder after the loss in the [Ivy Division] championship game [against Montclair Immaculate]. All we wanted to do was get this win and to go out like this in a game like this is just amazing,” said Piccinich, a junior. “We just needed one more stop, one more to win the game. We got it and we came out on top. We finish 9-1, but now that is erased. We will start next year at 0-0 so we will enjoy this one for a little bit and then we will start to prepare to do this all again next year.”

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