With the school year starting up again, that means football. Bernards High School has had fairly excellent success over recent years making it to the state tournament in three of the last four seasons. Last year however, the team’s final record was 5-3 and it did not make the cut. After losing star players Sebastian Sanchez and Griffin McParland, who are playing college football, the team looks to start anew.

The team has gotten off to a solid start, putting up 54 points in both of the first two games. The Mountaineers picked up a victory against Malcolm X Shabazz, but a tough week two loss against Roselle High School 61-54 . Bernards picked the wrong day to play against Roselle running back, Isaiah Byrd, who ran for 405 yards and made 3 touchdowns.

The Bernards offense is lead by star wide receiver Matt Tantleff who has scored seven touchdowns. In addition, running back Mark Murphy has dominated the backfield. Quarterback Stephen Gribben has done a great job understanding and controlling the offense in his second season as the varsity starting quarterback. When speaking to Stephen he acknowledged that the team has, “a great ability to put points on the board and move the ball down the field.”

On the other hand, the Mountaineer defense has had some struggles but still looks like a well oiled machine lead by defensive end Cubby Schuller and defensive tackle Bobby dePoortere. Cornerback Curt Gouldin stated that the team has “struggled minorly but [we] have loads of potential,” and added how they have “fantastic team chemistry, and just need to do [our] job and sure up our tackles.” The Bernards football team will definitely have to sure up their tackles this week against a very good AL Johnson team, who is going to try and run the ball a lot against the mountaineer defense. The Mountaineers look to be a force to be reckoned with, when it comes time to fight for the state title.