Football: Pequannock roughed up by Wallkill Valley

By Steve Janoski

WALKILL VALLEY - It was not, by any means, the way the Pequannock Panthers wanted to open the season: a 40-0 thumping at the hands of the Walkill Valley Rangers that left few bright spots on either side of the ball for Panthers head coach Ed Kopp to ruminate on.

Simply put, his team, which has just four seniors on it, is "not playing at a varsity level" yet.

"We're still not 100 percent confident in what we're doing," he said. "We've got such a young team, and we're not playing fast yet and because of that, everything looks like it's in slow motion."

Unfortunately for Pequannock, Wallkill Valley's running back combination of Nick McLean and Mike Buvis played at a blistering pace and accounted for five of that team's six touchdowns. Four of those occurred on runs of 30 yards or longer.

The Rangers jumped out to a quick lead on a 25-yard Calvin Kassarate touchdown run, and added to it later in the quarter when McLean broke off a 36-yard scamper that also ended in the enzone.

Pequannock's next drive would end in a punt, and Walkill Valley would score seven plays later on a 2-yard dive by Buvis in front of the goal line. Buvis would add a 57-yard touchdown run before the half to put the Rangers up by four scores. The team would add two more touchdowns in the second half (but miss one extra point) to bring the final score to where it stood.

From time to time the Panthers would be able to exploit cracks in the defense, and quarterback Luke Foukas and running back AJ Adamcyzk broke several short runs that seemed to show promise. However, the Ranger's swarming defense would stifled any progress the offense made.

"They're big, they're physical, they fly to the football…and their inside linebackers are studs," Kopp said. "The game comes down to blocking and tackling. They out blocked us and we couldn't tackle."

From here, it will be Kopp's job to make sure that his young team full of sophomores and juniors does not lose hope after week one.

"The game is won on each play, one play at a time, and you can't let a half of football…or a game of football, ruin your season," he said. "We've got two months left and there's still a lot of work to be done. We have a young team, and we still have a lot of potential, and we've just got the try and realize some of that potential as fast as possible."

Some of that potential lies with Adamcyzk, who somehow managed to amass 80 yards over 17 carries.

"AJ did a really nice job tonight, he ran the ball hard," Kopp said. "But (he) needs to be able to anticipate where the openings are going to be…and that's only going to come through repetition."

Pequannock hopes to rebound next week when they face Hopatcong on their home field.