OLD TAPPAN – Alex Orecchio’s thumbprint had already been pressed deeply into the Northern Valley/Old Tappan football program. As a sophomore he stepped in at quarterback in the state final and piloted the Golden Knights to the Group 3 state championship. Last year as a junior, he was the All-County caliber starting quarterback as NVOT made it back to the state sectional championship game.

With the new season, however, the deck has been shuffled and it was sophomore Zachary Miceli that lined up behind center while Orecchio embraced a new role. He is now the guy that slides around the formation, a versatile weapon that provides options as Miceli elevates as the primary signal caller.

“It gives us a lot of flexibility in a lot of areas. Alex is so good at so many different things and Zach is more like a pure quarterback,” said Old Tappan head coach Brian Dunn. “It is one of those things where you want to get your best guys on the field and we wouldn’t be doing that with keeping Zach on the sideline and letting Alex just play quarterback. We’ll use them both where they are best suited.”

So far, so good. Miceli’s first two passes went for touchdowns and Orecchio caught one of them, a screen that covered 34 yards, as the Knights did all of their damage in the first quarter and held on for a 19-7 win over highly-regarded West Essex in the Week 0 season opener.

Orecchio, who has committed to play at Johns Hopkins next year, was all over the place (kicker, kick return, defensive back, wide receiver, wildcat QB) and does not see his new role as any kind of demotion.

“Wherever Coach [Dunn] needs me that is where I am going to go. What matters is not where you line up, it is putting points on the board and winning games,” said Orecchio. “Zach is a helluva QB. I love him there and we want to develop him for the years to come. But this year already he as shown some real promising things and where ever I am I am going to try to make as many plays as I can and try to be as much as I can to this team.”

The game itself was won and lost in West Essex’s first three offensive possessions. The visiting Knights got the ball first, returned the opening kickoff into Old Tappan territory. West Essex looked like it caught a break when quarterback Jake Long had his facemask yanked while being sacked on a third-and-13, but the free first down only prolonged the drive long enough for NVOT’s Michael Gracey to make the game’s first big play.

With West Essex facing a third-and-9 from the 34, Gracey pulled in a pass that deflected at the line and scrimmage and, following a convoy of lead blockers, the senior lineman took it 65 yards to the house for a 6-0 Old Tappan lead with 8:40 left in the first quarter.

”It was just such I blur, but I just thought, ‘Catch it and run.’ It was such a surreal moment. I got a bunch of good guys blocking in front of me and I got the end zone” said Gracey. “You never expect something like that to happen on the first drive [of the season], but we did our stuff, we scored and just kept on going.”

West Essex’s second possession ended in a fumble recovered by senior defensive back Ronan Malady who then switched over to wide receiver and caught Miceli’s first pass of the game for a 39-yard touchdown up the left sideline to make it 13-0 still not even halfway through the opening quarter.

On the second play of West Essex’s third drive, sophomore Christakis Nicolaou produced NVOT’s third takeaway of the with its second interception and Orecchio cashed that turnover with his 34-yard catch and run to make it 19-0 6:52 into the game.

From there it was all about game management. The Golden Knights did not score again, but they did put together enough time consuming drives to limit West Essex’s chances. The only score against was Max Garcia’s 6-yard score with nine seconds left in the third quarter that kept West Essex (0-1), which is coming off a 10-4 season that included a state sectional championship and a trip to the Group 3 state final.

“I thought defensively we started off great. We had three [turnovers] right from the get-go and we ended up with three picks. Defensively I thought we did some great stuff,” said Dunn. “[West Essex] is very good. They know how to move the ball, they work within their system and their coach [Chris Benacquista] is fantastic. It was a great team that we were playing against and maybe it was a little misleading when we got up quick and maybe our kids thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be easy.’ It wasn’t. A couple of early game mistakes that they made we were able to take advantage. Otherwise it was an even game.”

No matter how it played out, it was a quality win on Opening Night, but also just step No. 1 in the process.

“We have to be better at finishing out a game. We had a great first half, but we have to do a better job finishing,” said Gracey. “We have a lot of good teams lined up against us on the schedule, so we just have to practice hard each week, watch film, get locked in and get after it.”

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