In Pascack Valley’s win Friday night over Wayne Hills, the defense stole the spotlight with their game saving stop late in the 4th quarter. But in the close 23-20 game, spectators could see through the rain that a large reason that PV was able to move to 4-0 was because of senior jack-of-all trades wide receiver Mike Pimpinella.

The most memorable play of the night came at the very end of the 2nd quarter. It seemed like PV would just run the clock out with little time remaining in the half and the ball on their own 24-yard line and take their 14-7 lead into halftime. But instead, quarterback Colin Dedrick suddenly dropped back and caught the defense off guard. He threw a bomb to Pimpinella and the two connected for a 67-yard score.

“I figured it was the last play of the half, so we might as well give it a shot,” Pimpinella said, “it was good to get a score going into halftime.” PV went up 20-7 after the long touchdown reception.

The second play that displayed Pimpinella’s creative side occurred in the 3rd quarter. Pimpinella, playing the role of punter on 4th down, seemed to bobbled the snap. Instead of recovering from the bobbled snap and punting the ball away, he tucked the ball and ran for an 18-yard run to move the chains. While the drive resulted in no points, this bizarre play was notable due to Pimpinella’s awareness and the ability to again catch the defense off guard.

“The coaches gave me the go ahead to run it, Connor Jones ran by me and said, ‘screw it just run it.’” Pimpinella explained.

The play that actually may have indirectly won the game for PV occurred again on a 4th down punt attempt. Following a Wayne Hills sack, Pimpinella again came out to punt. This time his foot and the ball made contact. The punt was a line drive and the Wayne Hills return man decided to let it bounce, thinking it would roll into the end zone. But Pimpinella did what every punter dreams of: have the ball roll out of bounds at the 1-yard line.

“I don’t really practice punting,” Pimpinella admitted, “I just aim for the sideline and do what I can.”

The punt forced Wayne Hills to start their final drive from their own end zone. Their drive ended after they turned the ball over on downs at the PV 24-yard line.

Although PV was still able to win the game, for the second week in a row, penalties severely hurt the team. Against Wayne Hills, PV racked up 11 penalties, as opposed to Wayne Hills’ six. Of PV’s 11 penalties, six were on special teams. But, the offense only was penalized twice.

The biggest factor that made this game particularly different from any other so far this season was the wind and rain. Hurricane Joaquin played against both teams as rain came down very hard throughout the entire game, making the footballs a bit slick and difficult to handle.

“The conditions were pretty difficult,” Dedrick described, “But, the team did a good job of keeping the balls warm by cycling through them.”

Another facet of the game that is always affected by wind and rain is the kicking game. Junior placekicker Matt Urrea did miss an extra point in the game, but also hit a 27-yard field goal in the second half to make up for it.

“I was pretty confident and once I hit it, it felt real good. I looked up and saw it was getting stalled by the wind a little and got nervous for second but fortunately it had enough to go in.” Urrea said of his field goal which extended the PV lead to 23-14 early in the 4th quarter.

Despite the unforgiving weather conditions on the field, PV still managed to stay perfect in another close-call victory in the 4th quarter.

Dedrick was able to continue his successful senior campaign, even in the wet conditions going 8-11, with 183 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT

Due to the weather conditions, PV ran the ball even more than they usually do in their “run-first offense”, as Flores was used plenty, totaling 32 carries, 147 yards, 1 TD

Pimpinella continued his strong campaign and finished with 5 receptions for 165 yards and two touchdowns.

According to coach Craig Nielsen, junior linebacker Noah Baumgarten’s “shoulder is out of the socket.” He also expressed concern saying that “it might be tough to come back from.”

“I feel bad,” Nielsen expressed, “He played at a high level.”

After also suffering a shoulder injury in PV’s game vs. Montclair earlier in the season, Nielsen expressed hope that Giambona could possibly return for PV’s matchup against Old Tappan on 10/16.

Kyle Alvarado, who came up with a key interception on defense, was voted “Beast of the Week” for Week 3.

Every week our sports writers try to predict the score of the game. In addition, every week two celebrity guests go head-to-head, with the winner moving on. After week 4 here are the standings:

Sports Writers:

1st place: Evan Jones (8 points)

2nd: Jake “The Snake” Aferiat (7)

3rd: Mike Zocco and Jaimie Smith (3)

4th: Claudia Ralph (2)

5th: Calvin Ralph (1)

6th: everyone else

Celebrity Winner:

Jeff Jasper: 4-game streak