Caldwell HS football team defeats Pequannock

POMPTON PLAINS, N.J. — The Caldwell High School football team defeated Pequannock, 33-0, Friday night, Sept. 8. The Chiefs posted their second straight shutout of the season to improve to 2-0 and stretch their winning streak to 31 games. Pequannock fell to 1-1.

With Hurricane Lee playing havoc all over the region, many football games were on mandatory rain delays due to lightning strikes this past weekend. This past Friday evening, Caldwell took the short 25-minute, 12-mile ride up the Newark Pompton Turnpike into the lower Pompton Valley of Passaic County to visit the Golden Panthers of Pequannock High School in Pequannock.

The Golden Panthers came into the contest with a big 34-20 week 1 win over Boonton and looked to spoil the Chiefs’ winning streak. The Chiefs were already on the hunt for another win as they pitched a 49-0 shutout over the Crusaders of Morris Catholic during Labor Day weekend. 

Pequannock took the opening kickoff and got stopped by a stingy Chiefs defense, led by senior LB Julian Casale, and sophomore and junior LB brothers Nick and Michael Mignone, who made it a point to not let the Golden Panthers offense, led by senior QB Tyler DeNaples, senior RB Michael Horgan and sophomore RB Dylan Roemmele, out of their sites. In fact, Pequannock’s in-your-face smash-mouth style was what head coach Mike Moschella was looking for as a way to keep the Chiefs from hitting the gas pedal in the first quarter. 

With that tactic in mind, that only added fuel to the already-revved up Chiefs engine after the first three-and-out. Both squads battled to a scoreless first quarter, but not before Caldwell senior RB Joey Marinelli made his presence felt. Although the late first-quarter, 43-yard run was called back for holding, Marinelli’s bruising running style would be something the Golden Panthers’ defense had to reckon with going into the second quarter.

After both teams traded punts to end the first quarter, Caldwell erupted for three touchdowns, thanks to Marinelli and senior QB Louie Anemone. The first touchdown capped a two-play, 61- yard drive that started at the end of the first quarter. Marinelli’s speeding 57-yard bullrush explosion gave Caldwell the 7-0 lead with 11:48 left in the second quarter. 

Although Pequannock’s next nine-play, 41-yard possession was somewhat positive, they were forced to turn the ball over on downs at the Caldwell 24-yard line where Caldwell’s Anemone and Marinelli played coy. Marinelli took the ball for a short gain before catching a 10-yard dart from Anemone to set up the next play. 

Once again Anemone called a pass play over the middle of the field, catching Marinelli in stride where he galloped 66 yards for the 14-0 lead after a double-doinking point-after kick attempt by junior kicker Sean Murtagh snuck in.

Anemone wasn’t done with the “Caldwell Express” first-half scoring machine just yet. He called his own number with just 2:21 left in the half, going on a 56-yard gallop on his own to put the score to a slightly manageable 20-0 lead going into the half. “I saw something that Pequannock’s defense was doing and told my coaches who trusted my judgment to execute the play we called and taking full advantage of what the defense gave us,” said Anemone after the game. 

The third quarter was pretty much the same with just a slight change in support offensive personnel. Caldwell’s Michael Mignone would hop into action with the Chiefs offensive unit as a pass-catching receiver out of the backfield while his brother Nick took over the second half ground attack spelling his teammate Joey Marinelli ,who finished the game with 100 yards on 10 carries and a touchdown which was 60 yards. Marinelli also finished with two catches for 77 yards and a score as his Chiefs kept the pressure up on the Golden Panthers. 

Anemone took pleasure in adding the next score by marching to the promised land in six plays, 54 yards and exploiting the middle of Pequannock’s defense with another 21 yard scoring run and a 26-0 growing lead after the blocked PAT kick. Anemone wasn’t done as he capped the final drive of the third quarter and what would prove to be the final score of the game. With just 3:02 left in the third quarter, Anemone fed the ball to the younger Mignone brother, Nick, who launched a blazing 41-yard run to the Pequannock 21-yard line before going through the air and finding his big brother Michael Mignone for a 10-yard pitch-and-catch to cap a four-play, 53-yard drive for the final 33-0 score.

In the fourth quarter, Caldwell played the clock and Pequannock was simply overpowered by a Caldwell defensive unit that combined for 57 total tackles, 42 assisted tackles, 15 solo tackles, 18 tackles for loss, and a sack. The lion share of the load was LB Julian Casale, who racked up 14 total tackles, 8 assisted tackles, 6 solo tackles, 8 tackles for loss. The Mignone brothers combined on 13 total tackles, 12 assisted tackles, 1 solo tackle, 3 tackles for loss, a single sack registered by Michael. 

“Coming into this week’s game we knew we had a much better squad to play against from what we played last year,” said Caldwell head coach Todd Romano. “They played an excellent game against Boonton last week and we were expecting the same type of game this week.” Pequannock’s senior linebacker duo James Bonner and Michael Horgan led the Golden Panthers defense with 10 total tackles apiece and a single tackle for a loss. 

Caldwell will remain on the road. The Chiefs travel down Bloomfield Avenue to next-door neighbor and close rival Verona on Sept. 14 to see if they can continue to add on their 31-game winning streak. Also, on that date, a surging Whippany Park Wildcats will make the 20-minute drive up I-287 for a good old-fashioned cat fight with Pequannock. Whippany Park opened the season with a 22-14 win over North Warren and dropped a 14-13 defensive nailbiter to Parsippany this past weekend.