SPORTS WRAP: HH Football Wins, Aviators Girls Harriers Take NJIC Title

The Hasbrouck Heights football team came from behind to win a critical game,  the Aviators girls cross country team won the NJIC Meadowlands title while the Heights boys cross country squad came in second for the Meadowlands championship.

The Aviators defeated Bogota, 28-24, on Saturday on the road after Heights was down 24-14. The Heights girls cross country team nipped Lyndhurst, 37-44, on Monday at Garrett Mountain in Woodland Park.

On the other hand the Aviators boys were far behind from the winner Lyndhurst 22-56, for the NJIC Meadowlands title but Heights outran Secaucus 56-66 for second.

Football

There was a challenge handed out by head coach Nick Delcalzo to his seniors on Saturday as the Aviators were down by 14.

The challenge was to continue to play football after the regular season for the seniors like Chris Abramo, Alex Gonzalez, Mark Palermo and Mike Pikowski who knew that if they did not beat Bogota that their postseason plans would most likely go out the window.

Well, the Aviators defense would crack down on the Bucs running game of Edwin Fiscal and Ray Pella. "We were confident that we were going to stop their running game," said Pikowski a safety on defense.

And Pikowski helped offensively with big plays in the air with quarterback Darren Iurato. Pikowski caught a 43-yard touchdown pass from Iurato in the third quarter and the point after was good to slice the Bucs lead to 24-17.

And then junior running back Anthony Seidel dove over from two-yards out with less than five minutes left in the game. The point after was good and the Aviators took a 28-24 lead.

The Heights defense took over after that as they forced Bogota to long third and fourth down plays which meant they had to pass which is not their forte and the Aviators won.

"He (Heights head coach Nick Delcalzo) told the seniors that we only have a certain amount of games left to play," said Pikowski one of the 11 seniors on the team.

The Aviators have another must win game on Friday at home at Depken Field at 7 p.m. against Lyndhurst. It is the Pink Game with the school asking everybody where pink in commemoration of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Girls cross country

The one-two punch of senior Rebecca Fortoul and Ali Robitaille helped lead the Aviators girls cross country team to the NJIC Meadowlands title. Fortoul outran the entire Meadowlands group with close to a three minute difference between herself and her teammate Robitaille.

Fortoul finished far ahead of the pack with a time of 20:49 while Robitaille ran a time of 23:16. 

But it might have been the third and fourth Heights runners who put the Aviators over the top as junior Kelly Moran and Jess Guerra finished five and seventh respectively with times of 23:46 and 24:20.

Sophomore Amanda Guerra (27:39), junior Leilani Heredia (28:09), and junior Caroline Paz (29:05) were 23rd, 24th and 26th respectively.

Boys cross country

A senior and sophomore finished third and fourth in the NJIC Meadowlands race on Monday at Garrett Mountain.

Aviators senior Rolando Mendoza was third with a time of 18:10, 10 seconds behind Lyndhurst senior Daniel Gaspar for second. Sophomore Marc Mastropietro was fourth with a time of 18:16 for the Aviators. Thiago Fernandes won the race for Lyndhurst with a time of 17:40.

Two other Aviators finished in the top 15 with sophomore Stephen Hodulik came in 10th with a time of 18:55 while junior Connor Gillespie was 14th at 19:11. Sophomore Keefe Doheny came in at 26th with a time of 20:50.

Girls soccer

The Heights Aviators continued to dominate in the NJIC and that was the case on Tuesday as Heights shutout Immaculate Conception, 7-0, on the road in an NJIC Meadowlands B contest.

Senior Julie Sheridan and Emily Batch combined for four saves to collect the shutout in the divisional game.

Senior Jodee Giarratana continued her scoring this season with three goals as Heights went ahead 6-0 in the first half. Sophomore Maggie Filja chipped in a pair of goals to help the Aviators cause. Theresa Ayala added a goal and two assists while Jenna DiGiacanto contributed a pair of assists.

Girls tennis

Hasbrouck Heights girls tennis defeated Immaculate Conception, 5-0, on Monday. Both Nina Messery and Jen Cheng, first and second singles respectively, won in two sets while Heights Marianne Lim needed to go three sets to defeated IC's Alyssa Sinski, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.