Josiah Guzman scoring a touchdown during Dumont's 17-0 win over Tenafly in one of only two remaining Thanksgiving Day games in Bergen County.
TENAFLY-- Where once just about every local football team played a local rival on Thanksgiving Day, now there are just two holiday games left in all of Bergen County. The state association has gone all in on playing down to one state champion in seven different classifications, so seven different “one state champions,” manipulating the schedule to make it impractical for most to continue a tradition that was never in need of a revamp.
Save for Northern Highlands and Northern Valley/Old Tappan, which are preparing to play teams they have barely heard of in championship games to be held on the first weekend of December on a neutral field, every other Bergen County football program had already handed in the helmets except for four. Hackensack played Teaneck and Dumont visited Tenafly under the brilliant sunshine on Thursday morning.
How quaint, but are even these two games worth saving? After all, it had been nearly three weeks since Dumont was eliminated from the state playoffs and nearly a month since Tenafly played its last game. With a fully torn meniscus, a partially torn ACL and surgery scheduled for Monday, surely Tenafly senior quarterback Emmet Goldberg would have wanted no part of taking the field on Thanksgiving in a game in which his team was a decided underdog even if he had been fully healthy.
Uh, no. Goldberg took every offensive snap in a game that was a closer-than-expected 17-0 Dumont victory.
“It is my last year. I am a senior and I have played with a lot of these guys since third grade. There was no way I was going to watch it from the sideline and let those guys go out there one last time without me against our rival. No way,” said Goldberg. “I just wanted to be part of this team, part of this game, part of this day, part of the camaraderie one last time and play one last game under [head coach Peter] Toale. I wanted to be out there.”
Tenafly QB Emmet Goldberg played his final high school game with a fully torn meniscus and a partially torn ACL.
Turns out, so did Dumont, which handled the layoff and control of the game from the time it took the opening kickoff and drove 52 yards for the game’s first score, a Richie Redfern 7-yard jaunt up the middle followed by Ethan Chiaramonte’s extra point just 3:05 into the game.
“The kids were always locked in. We have a really strong senior group that knows what beating Tenafly means to everyone. We kept harping on that. It’s two separate seasons. It’s the regular season and then it is this game. With such time off, we separated it and said we had to be 1-0 this week.” said Mike Farrington, who is now 1-0 as Dumont’s head coach in Thanksgiving Day games. “The buildup to it is tough because of the time off, but once you get out here it is a special feeling. Dumont enjoys it. We packed the stands, Dumont always shows up and even last night at our potluck dinner, the first one in three years, it was a big community event and the town loves it.”
Chiarmonte’s 33-yard field goal with 6:28 left in the first quarter made it 10-0 before Tenafly had its best chance to get on the scoreboard. The Tigers took over at their own 20 after Chiarmonte’s kickoff sailed into the endzone and covered 79 of the 80 yards needed for the touchdown. Goldberg hit David Levine on a throwback screen pass for a 20-yard gain and Will Zinna’s burst up the left sideline got Tenafly to the 10 and they were at the 1 on third down before Dumont stiffened. The Huskies muscled up on fourth down as well for a turnover on downs.
Josiah Guzman caught a 20-yard slant for a score on a fourth-and-6 play with 50 seconds left in the first half to put Dumont up 17-0and it stayed that way throughout the second half.
Richie Redfern scored the first TD for Dumont, which finished the season with an 8-3 record.
The win put the cherry on top of one of Dumont’s best-ever seasons. The Huskies went 8-3, won a state playoff game for the first time since 2000 and extended their winning streak over Tenafly to eight in a row.
“This is a great tradition. It keeps the town together and everybody comes out to this game. We get unbelievable support from the town,” said Guzman, Dumont’s junior wide receiver. “It was a great season. This was a great way for our seniors to go out; they were great captains and leaders. We worked hard for everything we got and we earned our success this year.”
Tenafly's season ended with a 3-6 record that is better than it appears. The Tigers exited the Ivy Division after last season and played out their full schedule with razor thin depth. Their worst loss by was by 24 points to Ramsey, which reached the second round of the North 1, Group 2 state sectional playoffs and hung tough against everyone else.
“Low numbers [on the roster], playing with smaller kids; none of that is new to this program and none of it is new to coach [Toale]. We will play whoever you put in front of us and we know we will give it our all,” said Goldberg. “The record is what it is, but there is nobody that I would rather have played with than the guys on this team and nobody that I would rather have played for than the coaches on our staff.”
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