WEST ORANGE- Whenever East Orange Campus and West Orange meet, you can always expect passion, physicality, penalties and a few mistakes.
This year’s meeting was no exception.
On a windy Friday night before a large crowd at Suriano Stadium, the Mountaineers cashed in a pair of Jaguar turnovers en route to a 27-6 halftime lead. Unlike the opener against Ramapo, West Orange finished strongly and cruised to a 34-13 win, its fourth in a row, in a Suepr Football Conference-Freedom White contest.
“It’s just another stop on the tour” proclaimed West Orange QB Daniel Lewis, who passed for two touchdowns and ran for another. “We’re a very powerful team, a very special team, and we know we’re going to go further than this.
“Like coach (Darnell Grant) says, this is just the beginning.”
It started out well for the Mountaineers, who took over five-and-a-half minutes to open the scoring on the first play of the second quarter. They converted three fourth downs, including one by penalty. West Orange was set to punt from the EOC 41 on 4th-and-3 when the Jaguars were flagged for an illegal substitution. Moments later, Daniel Lewis connected with Chris Smith for nine yards on 4th-and-5 from the 20. Junior Dy-Shawn Simpkins finished the drive with a 3-yard TD burst on 4th-and-2 from the 3 to make it 7-0 West Orange.
On the first play after the kickoff, West Orange recovered a Jaguar fumble and they struck immediately. Lewis found Evian Mishoe on a seam route at the 15 and the junior WR raced to the endzone for the second TD in 33 seconds and it was suddenly 14-0.
EOC would get on the board with a 17-play, 69-yard drive that took over eight minutes. Led by the running of Sean Smith, who had six carries for 38 yards on the drive, the Jaguars moved smartly down the field. A 15-yard pass from Zach Concepcion to Eric Wilkins and a 19-yard scamper by Smith moved the ball to the 20. They got a break when Jaleel Halsey recovered a fumble at the 2 to keep the drive alive, and that set up Smith’s 2-yard TD run and it was 14-6 with 2:51 left in the half.
Earlier in the half West Orange struck for two touchdowns in 33 seconds, and they would close out the half with two more scores in 20 seconds.
After taking the kickoff back to the EOC 49, a pair of completions set up West Orange at the 38.
Lewis then found senior TE Sydney Padilla wide open down the right side for a TD with 2:04 left in the half. On EOC’s next offensive play, Padilla’s strip sack forced a fumble which was picked up by senior DL Antwan Chitty Jr. for a 28-yard scoop-and-score to make it 27-6 with 1:44 remaining.
The Jaguars would not recover.
They took the second half kickoff and put together a sharp 9-play, 67-yard drive that took four-and-a-half minutes. The running of Smith and Halsey moved the ball to the WO 36. Concepcion found Musa Wittingburg for a first down at the 26 and then connected with Je’zi Lewis-James on a wind-aided TD pass to bring the Jaguars to within 27-13 with 7:22 left in the third.
EOC could not put another drive together, and when Lewis-James was stopped on a run from punt formation at the EOC 15 with 8:38 left in the game, it was clear the night belonged to the Mountaineers.
After a fourth-quarter stumble against Ramapo in Week 0, coach Grant was happy with his team’s response to adversity.
