Chatham Cougars Football Ropes Montville Mustangs, 30-18

In a game that Chatham High School (N.J.) football knew it would be tested and needed to win to gauge its direction, rose up and played well, beating Montville, 30-18, Saturday night to cap Cougar Weekend in front of a pumped-up, frenetic white-out home crowd.

While head coach Evan Picariello said Chatham’s performance was not flawless, he did say that his men did rise to occasion when they needed.

“I think this game was sloppy to an extent. There are a lot of things we got to clean up, and that’s obviously on me as a head coach,” Picariello explained. “But we found a way. We did some really great things today. I thought we very physical. We strung together drives when we needed to. Defensively, we were able to really confuse a quarterback (junior Clement Hofbauer) that’s been very successful in his first two games. We pressured and hit him a lot.”

Chatham (2-0) got on the scoreboard first when the Mustangs (2-1) snapped the ball out of the back of the end zone for a safety and 2-0 lead with 6:51 left in the first quarter.

But the Mustangs capitalized on a Cougar fumble deep in their own territory. Then, a few plays later, Montville turned around and scored a touchdown, for a 6-2 lead with 6:02 remaining in the first period.

Not to be outdone, junior quarterback Ryan Hogan connected on a 50-yard TD pass to senior Sonny Arden, a Carnegie Melon commit, to reclaim the advantage at 9-6 late in the second quarter.

Then, Hogan found senior tight end Hunter Bigham–who played a stellar defense and all-around fantastic tilt-–on a 12-yard scoring pass that gave Chatham a 16-6 lead with 5:54 to go in the first half.

“There were definitely a few sloppy plays by our team, but we came together when it mattered most, and we got it done,” Bigham, said. “It feels great.”

Montville responded with a Hofbauer touchdown toss to junior Jackson Gering that closed the gap at 16-12 with 2:18 left in the second period.

However, the Mustangs elected to go for the two-point conversion, but the Cougars thwarted their attempt to keep the tilt at four points.

After senior Michael MacAniff ball-hawked the passing route and intercepted the pigskin, Hogan found pay dirt a few plays later on a one-yard quarterback keeper for a 23-12 lead with 7:44 to go in the third quarter.

Montville refused to surrender, scoring on a Tyler Goldman, a junior, 22-yard TD rush to shrink its deficit to five points with 1:29 remaining in the third quarter. But that is a close as the Mustangs would get as senior Caden Gabriele broke up the two-point conversion pass attempt.

On the other side of the football, Gabriele capped Chatham’s scoring on a ten-yard touchdown rush to make it 30-18 with 10:48 remaining in the affair.

MacAniff, who enjoyed an excellent defensive game, picked off his second pass of the night.

Hogan, however, in one of his few mistakes of the night, threw an interception that was returned to the Mustangs’ 30.

But the Cougars’ defense kept Montville’s offense at bay the rest of the way.

Hogan totaled three touchdowns–two in the air and one on the ground, while senior running back Shep Boyd rushed the ball well. Senior linebacker Charlie Murray recorded a sack. Sophomore kicker Milo Semioli made good an all four extra point attempts.

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— Jerry Del Priore