EAST ORANGE, NJ — The East Orange Campus High School football team defeated Livingston High School 27-0 in the season-opener at Livingston on Sept. 5.
With the 2025-26 school year under way, the high school football season has started as well, with Weeks 0 and 1 in the books. Week 0 saw several previously ranked teams take an early tumble to opponents that were in smaller groups than their own. But for the first time in the past couple of years, Livingston was able to pitch a Week 0 shutout over Barringer High School, before meeting a very determined East Orange Campus squad.
Last year, the Lancers blanked Barringer 29-0 before giving the Jaguars a run for their money at Paul Robeson Stadium, losing by a touchdown 33-26. The story seemed to be the same this year when the Lancers steamrolled past the Barringer Blue Bears 48-0 over the Labor Day weekend to kickoff their season.
But as schools started their new school year, teams that did not play during Week 0 were chomping at the bit to get after it and start their season.
East Orange Campus was one of the few Essex County schools that waited to open the season on the road against Livingston. The Jaguars are citing unfinished business as part of their theme this season, as they made it to the North Jersey, Group 5 regional championship game, only to lose to Union City 42-0 on Union City’s Rooftop Stadium.
East Orange Campus has reloaded with a veteran squad, led by senior wide receiver and defensive back Alex Hanks, who is heading to Temple next season. Also, they have a new junior quarterback at the helm, Zachary Concepcion. Concepcion saw limited opportunities last season as a sophomore and is looking to lead the Jaguars to a state championship.
Livingston also returns a veteran squad, led by senior quarterback Will Atkinson, junior wide receiver Abel Paul and junior linebacker Christian Giordano.
Due to some pregame social media hijinx, Livingston’s players were cited for unsportsmanlike conduct. Although there wasn’t much love lost between the two former Iron Hills Conference rivals, East Orange felt they needed to send a message to all comers, starting with Livingston at Livingston High School’s Madonna Turf Field in Livingston.
The game started with East Orange deferring the opening kickoff to the second half, choosing to let their defense set the pace of the game. Fans didn’t have to wait long after the opening kickoff, when defensive lineman Michael Davis II crashed through the Lancers’ offensive line, forcing Atkinson to run backwards for a loss and the game’s first sack of the night. Davis would nab three out of the four sacks on the evening, keeping Atkinson busy, while the Jaguars’ defense stifled the Lancers at every twist and turn. The Lancers were held to a total 22 yards on 41 plays.
The Jaguars’ offense started their score tally with a five-play, 52-yard march that senior wide receiver Robert Minter capped with a 14-yard rumble into the end zone for the game’s first score of the evening with 8:25 left in the first quarter. It wouldn’t take long for Concepcion to find Hanks after a pair of penalties, dropping a beautiful 32-yard sliding bucket catch into Hanks’ waiting hands, with three Lancers defenders looking to break up the passing connection, putting the Jags up 13-0 with a 1:24 left in the opening quarter.
The Jags would force another Lancers punt, then methodically dinked and dunked their way down the field from their own 17-yard line in 13 plays, before stalling out just short of the Lancers’ end zone, missing a 23-yard field goal attempt with 4:21 remaining in the first half.
The Jaguars would pounce again, taking advantage of a relatively short field at the Lancers’ 21-yard line with just 49 ticks left in the half. Concepcion, after a brief spout of incompletions in varying degrees, found senior wide receiver Rashun Lynch on a short 10-yard route for the end-of-the-first half touchdown, stretching the lead to 20-0 at the half.
The third quarter was pretty much all East Orange dominating the possession of the ball, keeping Atkinson from his weapons, shutting down any attempts at digging in their bag of tricks and face-planting all Lancers ball carriers under their stingy defense.
Concepcion would find Hanks again after he dropped an incomplete pass in the end zone, for a 30-yard strike, putting the game out of reach and capping a nine-play, 42-yard assault on the Lancers’ defense to put the game away at 26-0 by the end of the third quarter.
East Orange would finish the night with 251 total yards, 57 plays and four touchdowns. Of that, Concepion racked up 16 completions on 37 attempts and 173 yards with three touchdowns. Meanwhile, Hanks finished with three completed targets for 76 yards and two touchdowns.
“You guys physically dominated in all aspects in tonight’s game,” said East Orange head coach John Jacob to his team after the game. He went on to tell them the season is not over after this game. “Every week, every game is a one- week season. We got West Side next week for our home opener, so let’s go and prepare for that,” he said.
It’s the first time that West Side will face East Orange since East Orange ran away with a 40-0 decision in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association’s crossover consolation game to close out the postseason in 2023.
Livingston head coach Bob Breschard stated that his team took advantage of the mistakes Barringer made in their season opener, but pointed out those mistakes were now on his squad, as he called it a much better and well-coached team that returned the favor.
East Orange will host West Side on Sept. 13 at 2:30 p.m. at Paul Robeson Stadium in East Orange. The Lancers will face Millburn on Sept. 12 at home, before coming down I-280 to visit West Orange on Sept. 19.
About the Author
