Pascack Valley football has always stressed one essential topic, family. On Oct. 4, a beloved member of that family was lost.

Alex Albert, a former Pascack Valley student,  passed away at the young age of 19. 

“Alex is one of our family and I think he inspired our performance yes, everybody was thinking about him,” Pascack Valley coach Craig Nielsen said.

And what a performance the Indians put on against Bergenfield.

The final score of the game was 49-13. Both the run and the passing game was used in Saturday’s showdown, and both were very effective.

One of the most notable performances was from senior Mike Pimpinella, who hauled in 8 catches for 217 yards, 4 TD’s, and a 2-point conversion. PV’s starting quarterback Colin Dedrick and Pimpinella were on the same page at Bergenfield Saturday. In fact, all of Dedrick’s completions and TD’s were to Pimpinella. One of these plays was a 90 yard touchdown pass on the second play of the game. It seems that the Indians have been setting the tone early in games recently. Two weeks ago against West Milford, Dedrick had a 55 yard TD pass to senior Mike Soravilla, and last week, Valley scored 14 points in the first quarter against Wayne Hills.

The passing game is becoming more prominent in the game plan as well for PV. Because of less than favorable weather conditions last week, Valley mostly resorted to the run game against Wayne Hills. However, against both West Milford and Bergenfield, it is evident that Dedrick has been throwing the ball more often then he has been in games that were earlier in the season.

And then there was the ever so famous Pascack Valley running game. Senior running back Andrew Flores had yet another dominant game on the ground for PV. He finished with 115 yards rushing on 22 carries. Flores has really stepped up when Valley needed it the most because Jake Giambona, another senior running back, had been out the past three weeks due to a shoulder injury. Nevertheless, Giambona returned Saturday and put on quite a show, he had two very big touchdown runs, and 8 carries for 60 yards. Flores got most of the work load as expected against Bergenfield, and Giambona got a decent amount of carries.

A name that is relatively unheard of is junior fullback Josh Tillis. He usually gets a very small portion of the workload as far as running the ball goes, but on Saturday, Josh proved that he can run with the best. 3 carries for 74 yards. Keep in mind that Tillis is not the type of running back that gets 20 plus yards in a run, but against Bergenfield, it was quite the opposite. Tillis averaged 25 yards per carry and was a threat that Bergenfield just could not stop. The Valley running game always makes headlines, but with Giambona almost at full strength, Flores, and Tillis, who all have proven that they can produce big runs when needed, the Indians will have a backfield that will become a force to be reckoned with.

Yet another component of Valley’s football team that always creates headlines is the defense. The defense has shown that regardless the amount of athletes the opponent’s team has, Valley will find a way to stop them.

This was exactly the case in the defense vs. Jovani Haskins, the 6-foot-4, 235 pound senior. Furthermore, Haskins is also a division 1 recruit, and is being recruited by several different big-name colleges, such as Virginia Tech, Rutgers, Miami, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Oregon. Haskins is the starting quarterback for the Bears, and was very hard to take down. Not only was he hard to take down, but he was a dual threat, a QB who can run and throw effectively. PV held Haskins to 3-11 passing with 64 yards and 2 TD’s. He also had 19 yards rushing for the Bears.

Senior captain of the defense Joe Williams contributed greatly to stopping Haskins, as he had 3 batted down passes and a sack.

“I love getting after the quarterback, and if I have a chance to go after the quarterback I’m gonna go. I practiced the mirror hand in practice every day, and it turned out to work today,” Williams said with enthusiasm.

Other than the 2 TD’s for Bergenfield, their offense was not able to do anything else because Valley’s stellar defensive line. In fact, you could possibly even relate them to a brick wall, that not even Haskins could break.

In spite of all the great performances this week from the Valley offense and defense, one thing is for sure, this victory was for Alex.

Injury Update: Pascack Valley offensive linemen Joe Schnugg was out this week but will hopefully return this week against Old Tappan.

Valley’s upcoming game is one of the most highly-anticipated games for the entire season, Northern Valley Old Tappan, who is ranked 15th in the state according to NJ.com. Northern Valley will be the toughest test yet for Valley, as they go up against a 5-0 team.

Friday’s contest against Old Tappan will see Pascack Valley look to win their 10th straight game. Their 9 game win streak is longest in northern New Jersey.

Mike Soravilla and Joe Colasuono were both non-factors in Saturday’s game. With Old Tappan’s stellar defense looking to shut down Pimpinella, look for Soravilla and Colasuono to be targeted more.

Dedrick’s four touchdowns gave him 12 for the year and just one interception.

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 5 here are the standings:

Evan Jones: 8

Jake “The Snake” Aferiat: 7

Mike Zocco and Jaimie Smith: 3

Claudia Ralph: 2

Calvin “Most Handsome Sports Writer of the Year Award Winner” Ralph: 1

Everyone Else: 0

Celebrity Guest Winner:

Jeff Jasper: 5-game streak