24-page ‘Sports History’
with HHS, SJHS pictures
St. Joe routs Allentown in WJFL debut
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Volume 20 • Issue 36
P. 27-50
by Dan Russoman
GAzETTE STAFF WRITER
THG/Dan Russoman. To purchase photos in The Gazette, call (609) 704-1940.
St. Joseph’s Qwahsin Townsel breaks free for the first of his three touchdown runs in the
Wildcats 37-19 win against Allentown last week.
HAMMONTON—Regardless of his
team’s personnel or who the opponent is in
any given week, there are a few things you
can always count on from a Paul Saccocoached St. Joseph High School football
team.
Sacco’s Wildcats will run the football.
They will play tenacious defense. They
will be better-prepared and conditioned
than the team on the opposite sideline.
It’s a formula that has added up to almost
37 300 wins
ST. JOSEPH
in Sacco’s
19 d i s t i n ALLENTOWN
guished 35-year career at St. Joseph, and it
was on full display last weekend, when the
Wildcats made their West Jersey Football
League (WJFL) debut, thrashing a solid Allentown team 37-19.
Allentown enters this season as one of
the favorites to win the Central Jersey
Group IV title, led by a talented All-WJFL
quarterback, Jordan Winston, who some
consider one of the best players in the
league.
Winston rushed for more than 1,600
yards last season but last week was kept in
check by a St. Joseph defense led by seniors
Michael Mascioli and Elijah Hardee. Mascioli recorded nine tackles in the game, four
for losses, while Hardee was in on seven
stops, including four behind the line of
scrimmage. Along with linebacker J.J. Delgado, who had nine tackles of his own, they
held Winston to 53 yards on 22 carries.
“We felt he [Winston] is a great player.
You don’t see too many quarterbacks who
compose themselves the way he does. He’s
not afraid to get hit. They feed him the
football and he’s hard to tackle. We stuck
him a couple of times, and he just kept
coming back,” Sacco said.
St. Joe’s defensive focus was on stopping
Winston, and Mascioli and his teammates
were always aware of where Allentown’s
top threat was on the field.
“That was our main focus, what he could
do,” Mascioli said.
“We knew he had a good arm and that he
could run. He’s an athlete. Our game plan
was to stop him,” he said.
Stellar defense is just part of the equation
for success at St. Joe, where a strong
ground game on offense is the key to any
Wildcat game. Last week, that potent attack was on full display as the Wildcats
See ST. JOE, Page 73
HHS girls chase title New challenges for Blue Devils
by Dan Russoman
GAzETTE STAFF WRITER
HAMMONTON—A year ago,
Hammonton High School’s girls
soccer team featured a veteran
lineup that produced a 15-7-3
record and earned the Lady Blue
Devils the second seed in the
South Jersey Group III playoffs.
Hammonton had its eye on a
trip to the sectional championship
game, but that goal was derailed
by a tough 2-1 upset loss to
Seneca in the tournament quarterfinals.
This year, with several of its
key players from a year ago lost to
graduation, the Lady Blue Devils
are once again hoping to compete
for Tri-County Conference Royal
Division and South Jersey Group
III titles.
“We hope to win the Tri-County Conference and make a run in
the South Jersey playoffs,” head
coach Krista Verzi said.
If Hammonton is to repeat last
year’s success, it will need to do it
with a roster that is far less deep
than it was in 2015. Gone are seasoned veterans Lizzy Thackston,
Kylie Mocarski, Marissa Deltufo,
Alyssa Torres and McKenna Forry. Those players were all multiple varsity letter-winners who
earned numerous All-Star honors
during their respective careers as
Hammonton.
That’s not to say that this year’s
team lacks talent. The Blue Devils are far from a rebuilding team,
but Verzi did express some concern about the team’s overall
youth.
“We have a lack of depth, [but]
we have a core of girls who have
been varsity players for two or
more years, so I’m looking forward for them to lead and assist
the younger girls,” she said.
The depth issues mean that
some players may need to shift
positions, putting them into unfamiliar places and roles on the
field.
“The biggest challenges will be
to adjust to playing different positions due to our lack of depth,”
Verzi said.
by Dan Russoman
GAzETTE STAFF WRITER
HAMMONTON—Hammonton High School’s football team
has long been recognized as one
of the top programs in southern
New Jersey. The Blue Devils
have perennially been in the hunt
for both sectional and conference
championships the last three
decades, and for their outstanding
play, the West Jersey Football
League awarded them with one of
the league’s toughest schedules
this season.
Hammonton was bumped up to
the WJFL’s American Division,
perhaps the league’s toughest,
where the Blue Devils will face a
difficult opponent every week this
season.
“When we first saw the schedule, we were a little surprised.
There’s a lot of Group V schools
on there, and we’re a Group IV
team. So, we were a little shocked
that we had to play so many teams
bigger than us. But when we
thought about it, we realized that
the league was just saying that it
felt we’re good enough to com-
pete at that level. So, it’s a compliment in a way, to what we’ve
been able to build here over the
years,” Hammonton head coach
Jim Raso said.
Raso is starting his second year
leading the Blue Devils after taking over for long-time head coach
Pete Lancetta last season. In
2015, Hammonton finished 9-2,
falling in the South Jersey Group
IV semifinals to eventual champion Timber Creek.
Many of the leaders of that team
See HHS, Page 72
THG/Dan Russoman. To purchase photos in The Gazette, call (609) 704-1940.
Stats don’t always measure a player’s true value
Dan Russoman
The Major League Baseball season is in
its final month, and as is often the case this
time of year, there will be a lot of discussion about who should win awards like the
Most Valuable Player or Cy Young Award.
As is the case in almost any season, there
are many players worthy of consideration
for those honors in both leagues. When the
World Series end s, the results of the votes,
turned in by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), will
be revealed, and fans across the country
will begin debating if the winners truly deserve their honors.
One of the main reasons for all the debate, at least in my opinion, is the reliance
See SOCCER, Page 71
that many voters have on new age statistics
that claim to accurately measure a player’s
worth to his team.
There are many stats that supposedly
measure these things, and several prominent members of the media have said that
they are far more accurate than the traditional statistics that I grew up looking at
every day.
For example, it is no longer considered a
good idea to use a pitcher’s win total to determine how effective he was. There have
been many seasons when the Cy Young
Award went to the pitcher who had earned
the most victories. That isn’t the case anymore.
There is also the argument that a player
shouldn’t be measured by how many runs
Sean Ryker (10) breaks around the Mainland defense for a long gain in
last week’s scrimmage.
batted in he has, because, the argument
goes, that stat has more to do with how
many of his teammates manage to get on
base than how well the player actually performs.
Truth be told, I’m kind of tired of all the
new statistics, and I think they’re ruining
the game.
You can’t measure a player’s worth to his
team by any statistic, be it something created a week ago by a mathematician or one of
the long-standing numbers traditionally
used to equate value.
These days, writers will look at a player’s WAR (wins above replacement), a
complicated formula that allegedly is the
most accurate way to determine how good
someone is on the field.
Stats can’t measure what a player means
to his team, on or off the field. If voters relied solely on numbers, would Kirk Gibson
have won the National League MVP in
1988? How about Terry Pendleton in
1991? Dustin Pedroia in 2008?
Their stats in those seasons were far from
spectacular, but they inspired their teammates on and off the field and drove their
teams into the playoffs.
There’s something to be said for the “eye
test.” Most of the time, you know the MVP
when you see him.
Dan Russoman is the sports editor of The Gazette.
Watch him on “Gazette Sports Week” every Wednesday afternoon and “Gazette High School Football Report” on Thursdays at www.hammontongazette.com.
Follow Russoman on twitter @DanRussoman.