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Elmwood Park plays spoiler over Ridgewood
Elmwood Park's Rocco Fanella (26) leaps over Ridgewood's Alex Wendel in the first half on Oct. 21, 2011 in Elmwood Park. | Rob Hart~Sun-Times Media
Updated: October 22, 2011 12:24AM
Elmwood Park (4-5, 1-3) had a mission to play spoiler at home against their arch-rivals from Ridgewood (4-5, 2-2) in the season finale on Friday night, and the Tigers did just that scoring on three of their first four possessions en route to a 33-27 win over the Rebels. Junior Rocco Fanella ran 19 times for 154 yards and a pair of touchdowns of 29 and 38 yards respectively to help lead the Tigers to the victory.
“I challenged them all week, and it was a rough week of practice with the weather, but we didn’t let that bother us,” a very proud Elmwood Park head coach Luis Arroyo said. “We knew we had to get ready for one hell of a football team.”
Two Elmwood Park scores in a 64-second span in the third quarter put the Tigers up for good. After Ridgewood reclaimed a one-point advantage with one of three rushing scores by P.J. O’Connor (139 yards on 24 carries), the Tigers marched 61 yards in six plays with Fanella scoring from 38 yards out. Junior Carlos Sandoval converted the two-point try to make the score 27-20 for Elmwood Park.
“It’s just a great feeling to knock our rivals out from making the playoffs,” Fanella said after the victory. “We wanted to go out with a win for the seniors, and 4-5 is not a bad record.”
Senior Mike Miller came up big for the Tigers as he recovered a mishandled snap on the Rebels’ first play from scrimmage that set the stage for Senior quarterback Tom Senn’s 11-yard touchdown pass to fellow classmate David Baratta to make it a 33-20 Tiger lead. Senn completed five-of-eight passes for just 45 yards, but he did connect with Baratta for two touchdown passes.
Sandoval stopped the Rebels next drive as he intercepted Joe Jacobsen in the end zone early in the fourth quarter. Ridgewood did come back with another touchdown midway through the fourth quarter as O’Connor scored from two yards out to pull within six, but the Tigers recovered an onside kick with 5:44 remaining and ran out the clock with Senn twice earning first downs with quarterback sneaks on 4th and 1 plays.
“It was Elmwood Park’s night,” Arroyo said. “We scrapped our way through the fourth quarter, and I couldn’t be prouder of our seniors and the work they put in for four tough years. This shows what happens when you do things the right way. I gave a message to the juniors that…you should know how close you could be to the playoffs and that they should use this as a stepping stone. For the seniors, I hope the memory of this game is something they can feel good about for the rest of their lives because they should.”
Jacobsen finished the night completing 13 of 19 passes for 201 yards, a touchdown, and two interceptions for the Rebels. He connected with Alex Wendel for the touchdown to give the Rebels a brief 7-6 lead. Wendel also led Ridgewood on defense with seven solo tackles and four assists.
Elmwood Park senior Jim Accettura was the heart of the defense for the Tigers with eight tackles with three of them for negative yards including two sacks. Miller had two sacks of his own to go with his fumble recovery. Junior Geno Cadetto nabbed an interception while Sandoval scored Elmwood Park’s opening touchdown.
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