Central’s Repeat Title Hopes Dashed by Mendham

The only thing harder than winning a championship is winning it again.

Unfortunately for the West Morris Central Wolfpack football team, the North 2, Group 4 defending champions, they learned that the hard way.

Central hosted a Mendham Minutemen football team Friday night that was riding high on momentum, losing to the visiting team 16-0.

Winners of four of their last five, the Minutemen entered the playoffs as underdogs, but knocked off No. 3 seed Colonia by 20 points, while the Wolfpack needed an overtime touchdown to get by Morristown.

Central’s offense sputtered from the start, when running back Javier Murray was tackled behind the line of scrimmage on a fourth-and-3 on the Wolfpack’s first possession.

From there, Mendham picked off Collin Sokolowski twice in the first half and forced a fumble all before the half. Despite eight penalties for 55 yards in the first two quarters, Mendham went into the half up 10-0.

Mendham quarterback Jack Horan hit John Powers on a seven yard touchdown pass with 3:59 to play in the second quarter to open up the scoring.

A scoreless third quarter led to a quick moving final period, when Horan hit Powers one more time to put the game out of reach. This time it was a 60-yard pass that gave Mendham the 16-0 edge.

The Minutemen defense closed up shop with a sack fumble of Central’s replacement quarterback Cooper Sloan with two minutes to play.

Central ends the season with a 7-4 record.

All information aggregated through crowd sourcing on Twitter and Facebook.