In near perfect game, West Deptford rips Haddonfield, 48-14
The perfect game is out there, as unreachable to football players as the perfect wave is to surfers. But West Deptford spent a long time in the tunnel on Friday night.
The perfect game is out there, as unreachable to football players as the perfect wave is to surfers.
But West Deptford spent a long time in the tunnel on Friday night.
The Eagles scored on every possession in a 48-14 victory over archrival Haddonfield before a crowd that filled the concrete grandstand of the Bulldawgs' historic stadium.
They didn't commit a turnover. They weren't hit with any penalty yardage.
"That tells me," West Deptford senior running back Anthony Seas said, "that this is a special football team."
Experiencing one of South Jersey's best rivalries for the first time, Seas carried the football 16 times for 169 yards and two touchdowns and also returned a kickoff 92 yards for another score.
West Deptford senior fullback Gio Gismondi added 142 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries in the West Jersey Football League Colonial Division game.
"We've been fortunate enough to have a lot of big wins over the years," West Deptford coach Clyde Folsom told his players after the game. "But this one ranks up there. The effort was outstanding."
Folsom said it was the second time in three games that his team, which is No. 5 in the Inquirer Top 25 rankings, had not committed a turnover or been assessed any penalty yardage.
"The discipline is there. The focus is there," Folsom said after the Eagles clinched a share of the division crown.
Senior quarterback Brendan Gilmartin ran 17 times for 86 yards and two touchdowns for No. 22 Haddonfield (4-2).
"I'm just so proud of our kids," Haddonfield coach Frank DeLano. "We've got a lot of young kids out there mixed with our seniors who have invested so much. . . . That [West Deptford] is a good football team. Give credit where it's due.
"But our kids kept fighting. Was it good enough? No. We need to get better. But I couldn't be more proud of the way our kids fought out there."
Seas spent his first three seasons at Kingsway, so he only knew about the Haddonfield-West Deptford rivalry as an observer.
He heard about it all week from his teammates then saw for himself when he walked on the field and looked up at the crowd that filled every row of the stands.
"I felt the vibe right away," Seas said.
Seas went 57 yards around left end for a touchdown on the game's third play. He added a five-yard touchdown run in the second quarter.
"He's really good," DeLano said of Seas.
West Deptford was 5 for 5 in in scoring drives in the first half, with three touchdowns and a pair of field goals by Mike Bilodeau.
It was 27-7 at half, and Haddonfield opened the third quarter with a 70-yard drive featuring two Gilmartin completions for 27 yards and a 31-yard run by junior back Ben Klaus. The quarterback's second touchdown made it 27-14.
But Haddonfield's momentum lasted as long as it took for the ensuring kickoff to reach Seas. He went up the gut for 92 yards for his 15th touchdown of the season.
"They were testing me, so I knew they would kick it to me again," Seas said. "I waited a little while to make the 'go-call,' got some blocks and squeezed through and took it to the crib."
The Eagles' next two possessions were nearly identical: 84 yards on 12 plays ending with a 42-yard Gismondi touchdown and 76 yards on 13 plays ending with a 10-yard Gismondi touchdown.
Crisp blocking, hard running, near-flawless execution.
On his first score, Gismondi broke about five tackles in a run reminiscent of his rampage in the scrimmage against Pennsauken, a play that made MaxPreps' weekly national highlights.
"I'm just looking for five yards and a first down," Gismondi said.
Gismondi knows the Eagles will never play a perfect game. But they are still in pursuit.
"We strive for perfection," Gismondi said. "It's that simple. If it's not perfect, we don't want it."
The Eagles weren't perfect on Friday night.
But they were pretty close.
West Deptford 10 17 7 14 - 48
Haddonfield 0 7 7 0 - 14
WD: Anthony Seas 57 run (Mike Bilodeau kick)
WD: Bilodeau 26 FG
WD: Seas 5 run (Bilodeau kick)
WD: Kenny Lim 66 run (Bilodeau kick)
H: Brendan Gilmartin 1 run (Henry Grozier kick)
H: Gilmartin 1 run (Grozier kick)'
WD: Seas 92 kickoff return (Bilodeau kick)
WD: Gismondi 42 run (Bilodeau kick)
WD: Gismiondi 10 run (Bilodeau kick)
@PhilAnastasia