West Football Gets Statement Win

The players on the Cherry Hill High School West football team are starting to believe.

Once word gets out about their latest victory, the rest of the community will be right there with them.

The Lions made a major statement Friday night, defeating Moorestown, 16-7, to improve to .500 and get right in the thick of the Group 4 playoff race.

The victory vaults the Lions into seventh place in the Group 4 standings, with the top eight teams advancing to the playoffs. Just as important, it shows that a program that hasn’t sniffed the playoffs in recent years has entered into a new era.

“We weren’t even close the last two years and I never thought we would be this close for my senior year,” senior James Verzicco said. “It feels great. I’ve got my family out here and it means a lot.”

When the thought of making the playoffs was brought up to receiver Dwuane Allen, the word “happy” kept creeping into his vocabulary.

“This was a great win,” Allen said. “It gives us playoff points and I am so happy. I’m happy I scored, happy our team scored and happy the defense was shut-down.”

After starting 1-3, it looked like the Lions were heading towards the same path previous Cherry Hill West teams had traveled. West has not had a winning season in the last decade and won just two games each of the last two years. But a dominating performance against Woodrow Wilson, followed by a win over a Moorestown team that reached the Group 3 semifinals last season, has changed all that.

“This is huge,” West head coach Brian Wright said. “This is what we talked about in March when I met the kids.

"It’s not the same Cherry Hill West. We have been fortunate enough to get kids that have been well coached in the past, but sometimes newness brings a new attitude. Last week we showed we can win and this week kind of confirms it.”

Moorestown got out to an early lead when Sidney Ruffin capped off a 46-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to give the Quakers a 7-0 lead with two minutes, 35 seconds left in the first quarter.

It would take West just one play to respond.

“When they came out and got that touchdown, everything was running through my mind,” explained Allen. “I was like, ‘We are not going to lose this game. We are going to do it just like we did against (Woodrow) Wilson.'”

With a first down on its own 29-yard line, West set up for a short slant. The play broke down, and quarterback Rodney Williams scramble to his right and spotted Allen standing wide open about 40 yards down field. Williams fired a strike to Allen, who took it the rest of the way for a 71-yard touchdown that
tied the game.

“I just gave (the defender) a little two-step move and went deep, and Rodney rolled out and threw me the ball,” Allen said. “I thought I was dreaming at first.”

The Lions’ defense took over from there, stuffing the Quakers series after series. Greg Smolsky and Connor Maloney each recorded a sack as the West defense didn’t bend over the next three quarters.

Cherry Hill West was able to take the lead with 9:36 left in the game when kicker Rob Brodie converted a 27-yard field goal to put the Lions up 10-7. The score was set up by a couple of hard runs by Tyrone Williams and a fourth down pass from Rodney Williams to Geronimo Santana.

After another three-and-out from its defense, West put the game away when Jaquan Gonzalez-Pratt broke lose for a 51-yard run, setting up a 12-yard touchdown pass from Williams to Verzicco. The touchdown reception was a bit of magic from Verzicco, who tipped it to himself and caught it one-handed as he crashed to the ground just inside the pylon.

“He put it up and I don’t even know how it fell in my hands,” Verzicco said. “It just fell in my hands. I tipped it with my left hand and when I was falling down I brought it in with my left hand and pulled it to my chest.”

Now the focus turns on making it three in a row against Bishop Eustace, which lost, 41-6, to Delsea Friday to fall to 2-4. With a win, reaching the playoffs will be an almost certain reality for the Lions.

“We need to go to the playoffs to show that we are a good team,” Allen said. “We are not just West, we are West Nation, West Lockdown and West Football. That’s what that ‘W’ stands for.”

This is new ground for West, and the first-year coach believes that can be a positive.

“Sometimes, naiveness is a good thing,” said Wright. “They don’t know any different. They are reveling in the moment.

"We will enjoy this tonight and then get ready for Eustace, which might be one of the biggest football games in this program’s history.”