Pascack Valley vs Bergenfield

When: Saturday Oct. 10, 2 p.m.

Where: Bergenfield High School

Current Records:

Pascack Valley: 0-1

Bergenfield: 1-0

Falling 41-6 to Ramapo last week, Valley’s football season got off to a bumpy start. However, the experience gained from the loss could help smooth the way for the team – specifically the defense – to succeed against a Bergenfield offense that, like Ramapo’s Charles DePrima, has a dual-threat quarterback running the show.

“You want to go against the best,” Head Coach Len Cusumano said. “It can only help you down the road in games coming up and going against a guy like [DePrima last week] should help us here in game two.”

Valley will have a chance to bounce back on Saturday when it travels to Bergenfield to take on the Bears. The two teams last met in 2017, when the Bears escaped with a 14-9 win in the regular season finale. 

This time, PV hopes to head home with a different result. And containing Bergenfield senior quarterback John Gallagher will be crucial in doing so.

Gallagher was nominated by northjersey.com as a North Jersey Football Player of the Week candidate following a 333-yard performance in Demarest last Friday night. He completed 14 of 21 passes for 233 yards and added 100 yards on the ground, scoring three total touchdowns in the process – the most important of which came on a 27-yard pass to senior receiver Xavier Haskins with eight seconds left to give the Bears the 27-21 win over the Norsemen.

“We just have to make sure [Gallagher] does not get into any kind of rhythm,” Cusumano said. “Make sure we do our job on defense – securing our position, making sure we’re handling our roles as best as possible and making sure we trust the guy next to us.”

Gallagher is not alone on Bergenfield’s offense, as the Bears had three players produce 69 or more receiving yards last week: Haskins (69 yards), junior John Kradenski (70 yards), and senior Michael Davidson (79 yards). Running back Ward Ester also tallied 38 rushing yards and a touchdown.

“[We can’t let them] get into a rhythm offensively where if the run is going well for them, they’re going to continue to run the ball. If they can throw the ball on us, they’re going to go to that,” Cusumano said. “They have a ton of other skill guys – [Davidson] does a great job [as well as] a couple good-looking wide receivers, a couple good-looking backs. They’re very skilled kids who can cause havoc back there.”

With that being said, Bergenfield’s offensive line is made up entirely of juniors and sophomores, and the lack of seniority can make for a potential point of exploitation in favor of Valley’s defense. 

On the other side of the ball, Valley is looking to bounce back from a four-turnover performance that netted just six points. Bergenfield’s defense came up with three takeaways of its own last week, meaning ball security will be key for Valley’s offense to be successful.

“We just have to protect the football,” Cusumano said. “We can’t allow teams to get in any kind of rhythm offensively because of turnovers that we created. We went back to work this week on ball security and the importance of maintaining possession – clearly it was something we had to work on and obviously we have to get better with that this week. The goal is zero turnovers in any game.”

Quarterback Zach Traina completed eight of 17 passes for 36 yards and two picks last week, also adding 43 yards and a touchdown on the ground, while running back Mike Solazzo rushed for 86 yards of his own. While they are arguably the two biggest factors to the offense’s performance, Cusumano stressed the importance of everybody being on the same page.

“We have to be more consistent, have confidence, and trust each other to make the plays that need to be made,” Cusumano said. “Just be more fundamentally sound and build confidence through the course of the drive.”

It is also essential for the players to remain focused on the task at hand, which includes putting last week’s loss behind them and not worrying about the future.

“Every week, the goal is always to go 1-0,” Cusumano said. “[We are] focusing on this week and only this week [while] not looking too far ahead because at any point with what is going on right now [in terms of COVID-19], we could not be practicing and not be playing this week, so we don’t want to take anything for granted. We want to make sure we focus on what we have to do today, this week and this weekend.”