Ridgewood Vanquishes 'Enemy', Paramus in Annual Thanksgiving Game

Thanksgiving dinner will be even more filling for the Ridgewood football team after the Maroons dispatched Paramus 42-13 in the annual rivalry game.

"It's been an up-and-down team and we've played some great football this year," said Ridgewood Head Coach Chuck Johnson, whose team finished 5-5 after dropping 4 of the first 5 contests to some of the area's best programs.

Due to the slow start, the Maroons were unable to garner a playoff birth and last week lost a non-league consolation game 21-7 to Morris Knolls.

"I told the kids all week we met the enemy – the enemy is us and today we did all the things we need to do offensively," Johnson said.

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But it was a different story this year. Ridgewood was able to minimize turnovers and largely kept the high-octane Paramus (7-4) offense off the scoreboard.

Paramus senior quarterback Mike Bussanich found wideout T.J. Chambers for a 15-yard touchdown in the third quarter and followed up with a strike to Tyler Gargiulo in the fourth. But Paramus was held scoreless in the first half and gave up huge runs to Ridgewood's trio of running backs. 

"They do good things [and] have a great offense but our kids just played better today," Johnson said.

Senior running back Blake Feagles found the end zone four times, including a 99-yard dash in the 4th quarter. Peter Reuter also ran one in for the Maroons in his last game in Maroon red.

Part of Ridgewood's turnaround this season may be attributed to a new no-huddle offense, which now features a passing threat led by sophomore quarterback Jamal Locke. The dual threat Locke completed a touchdown pass to tight end Michael Johnson in the first quarter; Ridgewood never looked back.

"We're still getting used to it," Johnson said of the new-look offense. "I think it has a lot of potential. I think we'll be better at it next year."

"We started noticing our flaws in our games" and made adjustments, said Locke of the mid-season resurgence. Locke credited the departing seniors as "great role models" and "hard workers" that set the tempo for the squad.

Locke has high expectations for next year, despite the loss of over 25 seniors.

The entire starting backfield of Feagles, Jason Canella and Reuter will need to be replaced, and the offensive line will see some new faces after the graduation of senior captain tackle Anthony Balboa and others.

The defense too will lose key contributors, including ballhawk Aaron Bess, tackle machine linebackers Tripp Telesco and Matt Camporini, run-stuffing defensive lineman Dylan Logan and blanket cornerback Brendan Carroll.

"We're going to keep it rolling," Locke said after the game. "We won this game, we want to keep our winning streak going. We don't want to lose a game ever – we're going to play hard and see what happens."