State of the Program: Lenape Valley football regaining confidence after late-season surge
Lenape Valley endured difficult shortcomings and unfortunate injuries last fall, leading to a rare season outside of the playoffs.
At 2-6, it would have marked one of the worst seasons for the program in decades, but the Patriots won three straight games to win a Regional Invitational Tournament.
"We had a series of unfortunate events that happened to us," coach Wade Pickett said. "We were in a number of games with teams that made the playoffs and we just had a hard time finishing teams off and learning how to win. A couple of plays go different ways and the results might have been different."
The Regional Invitational Tournaments were introduced last year for teams that do not reach the playoffs. Lenape Valley was a No. 2 seed in the North Group 2 bracket, claiming the title and finishing the season at 5-6.
"It was awesome for us," Pickett said. "It was a nice little finish for us."
Pickett said the Patriots had only a handful of seniors last season, and when a few got injured during the final weeks of the RIT, they won their final game with only two seniors on the field. That translated to a lot of opportunities for underclassmen.
"By that time in the schedule, the freshmen were with us and the JV schedule was done," Pickett said. "So we had a chance to give opportunities to a lot of players that would have otherwise ended their years a couple of weeks earlier."
The tradition
Lenape Valley has won seven sectional championships, all under legendary coach Don Smolyn.
Smolyn won 348 games during across 45 years with the program before retiring in 2020. A long-time assistant under Smolyn, Pickett is now in his third season as head coach and still searching for his first playoff win.
Last fall marked only the third time since 1998 that the Patriots missed the playoffs.
The challenge
Figuring out where players fit in offensively will be interesting this summer. The importance of a primary runner is essential for a traditional Wing-T offense and losing 1,000 yard rusher Eric Perez leaves a large hole in the backfield.
"Eric was a special human being," Pickett said. "That kid had 28 explosive runs on offense per game and most of them came in the third or fourth quarter. It's tough, believe me. We've got some great looking kids, but you don't sit there and suggest you're going to replace Eric Perez."
A rare quarterback battle will be important too. Senior Keith Wagner took snaps last year before a shoulder injury put Tanner Gaboda on the field under center. Now a junior, Gaboda will try to hold on to the position he manned while leading Lenape Valley through the RIT.
"It's good to have a little quarterback competition," Pickett said. "To know you have a viable backup regardless of how the competition turns out makes us stronger."
Expectations
Lenape Valley hopes to build on last year's momentum and return to the playoffs. But the schedule will be a challenge as six of the Patriots' nine opponents reached the playoffs last year.
"When you look at what happened with the teams we faced last season, our schedule was a buzzsaw," Pickett said. "In a lot of those games, we were hanging in there and broke down late. We didn't know how to win then but we had to learn."
The season-opening game against Glen Ridge pits two teams that won RITs last year.
2023 schedule
Aug. 25: vs. Glen Ridge
Sept. 1: at Mountain Lakes
Sept. 8: vs. Kittatinny
Sept. 15: vs. Hackettstown
Sept. 22: at Vernon
Sept. 29: vs. Newton
Oct. 7: at Wallkill Valley
Oct. 14: at Sussex Tech
Oct. 20: vs. Parsippany Hills
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Lenape Valley NJ football regaining confidence after late-season surge
