Bloomfield HS football team has pieces to be a competitive squad this season

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BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Accountability and competitiveness.

Those are the two facets that this year’s Bloomfield High School football team is focusing on.

“We talk a lot about accountability and we talk a lot about competing,” said Mike Carter, entering his 33rd season as the Bengals head coach. “The kids are really buying into that and selling it to each other. We’re looking forward to becoming a very competitive team on a very good schedule.”

With a good returning group, the Bengals are looking to build off last season’s 5-5 season. Bloomfield regrouped nicely from a 1-3 start to the season. They posted four shutouts among their five victories, including consecutive shutouts over Barringer, 14-0, in Newark, and Belleville, 35-0, at Foley Field in Bloomfield.

The Bengals defeated Hackensack, 24-14, in the semifinals before falling to Plainfield by a lopsided score in the championship of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association’s North, Group 5 regional invitational tournament to end the season.

Among the returning starters is senior Trevor Frantanoni, who had a strong junior season.

Seniors Wayne Oliphant and Jonathan Nichol, and junior Alejandro Valencia also will be key cogs as running backs and linebackers.

The key offensive-defensive linemen are seniors Will Cordero and Gabe McCulloch, and junior DJ Coltenback. McCulloch last season made the second team on the all–Super Football Conference–Freedom Red Division.

Senior tight end-long snapper Elijah Valentin, senior kicker Dante Davis and junior running back-free safety Sebastian Urena are other players to watch.

Carter has been delighted to see his team’s strong dedication. In addition, Carter is extremely happy to have multi-sport players on the roster. Carter always encourages his players to compete in other sports.

“The work ethic and commitment level have been outstanding since we started last fall,” said Carter. “We’ve got a ton of kids playing multiple sports, which we’re really proud of. We like doing that for the competitive edge; I’m not a big guy on putting all your eggs in one basket. Our coaching staff preaches to do more sports. We got a lot of guys wrestling, some baseball guys.

“The weight room ethic has been very good, the commitment to it has been very good. The older guys helping out the younger guys come along is working well for us.”

The Bengals want to focus on working on the fundamentals, such blocking, tackling, ball security and knowing reads, assignments and keys.

“We’re very excited about what the future is bringing and these kids have worked hard to get themselves into a position to be successful,” Carter said. “It’s a good group of guys that we’re excited about, and they’re excited. The kids are buying into the family concept, too.”

Notes – The Bengals coaching staff includes two of Carter’s sons, who both played for their dad – Michael Carter Jr., Class of 2013; and Dan Carter, Class of 2017. Michael Carter was the starting quarterback on the 2012 team that went to the state sectional championship game, losing to Montclair in double overtime at MetLife Stadium to finish with a 9-3 record. Michael was injured in the sectional semifinal win over Union City, and only got to play as a punter in that sectional final. The Bengals, who beat Randolph at home in the first round, won their first playoff games in program history during that run and they made their first-ever state sectional championship appearance. The Carter brothers also were standout baseball players; Michael played Division 1 at Rutgers University. This past spring, Dan made the first team all–New Jersey Athletic Conference and earned all–Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference honors after batting .418 with 69 hits and 52 RBI in 40 games. Dan also finished in the top 10 in the New Jersey Athletic Conference in batting average, on-base percentage, on-base plus slugging, hits and RBI.

BHS offensive coordinator Ed Capozzi, a 2003 BHS graduate who played for Mike Carter as a quarterback, was among this year’s inductees of the Essex County Football Coaches Hall of Fame. Every year, the inductees are enshrined during the annual Paul Robeson High School Football All-Star Classic. This year’s game was held at Belleville High School. The game previously had been held at Paul Robeson Stadium in East Orange every year since its inception in 1994.

BHS assistant coach Ed Sadloch will be coaching in his 50th year. Sadloch was a former Cedar Grove head coach for 25 years, leading the program to 20 state sectional playoff appearances and two state sectional titles. He also coached at Parsippany and Bayley-Ellard.

The Bengals are excited to play on a new turf field at Foley Field this season. Construction began in August.

The other teams in the Freedom-Red Division are Barringer, Dickinson, East Orange Campus and West Orange.

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