Vic’s Subs Cover Story: St. Joseph faced adversity, learned lessons on way to another championship

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
The St. Joseph football team was the consensus No. 1 team in South Jersey before the season even began, as every media outlet that covers teams south of I-195 believed the Wildcats had the ability to run the table again in 2018 and put up a 12-0 record and another state championship, just as they had done in 2017.
It was hard to argue with that selection. The Wildcats were stacked with talent across the board and not only did they have perhaps the best running back in South Jersey in junior Jada Byers, but Byers would be spending his third varsity season running behind a massive offensive line that was stacked with experience — and a mean streak. The line was led by Wisdom Quarshie, a 6-foot-3, 310-pound senior and one of the top offensive line recruits in South Jersey, and he was joined by guys such as Sean Morris (6-3, 285) and Tucker Monico (6-2, 270), among others.
And sophomore quarterback Jayden Shertel had plenty of other weapons aside from Byers. Senior Nate Johnson would have been the No. 1 running back on just about any other team in the West Jersey Football League and Shertel had a pair of emerging stars in his own class in fellow sophomores Ahmad Ross and Keshon Griffin.
The defense was just as intimidating, as seniors Brad Lomax and Bobby Hyndman led a front seven that even St. Augustine Prep believed it couldn’t run the ball successfully against despite the Hermits having a very good offensive line and some capable backs. And, of course, the Wildcats are led by legendary coach Paul Sacco, who came into the season with 19 Non-Public championships since 1993 and is one of the winningest coaches in state history.

Everything seemed to be lined up for a steamroll that would last for the better part of three months. But as any coach will tell you, football is a grind. It’s a tough sport that tests you not only physically, but mentally, and every team faces some sort of adversity throughout the course of a season. In St. Joseph’s case, the adversity it faced in 2018 was self inflicted.
The first month of the season was a breeze, as St. Joseph rolled to a 4-0 start, outscoring its opponents 172-38, including a 34-6 win over Millville and a 30-8 thrashing of St. Augustine Prep — two of the better teams in South Jersey. But prior to the Wildcats’ matchup with Haddonfield on Sept. 29, controversy began to emerge. Several players had gathered at coach Sacco’s house on the Friday night prior to the Haddonfield game and were using Snapchat, a social media forum, to exchange barbs with Haddonfield players. In the video, racial slurs were used and a parent of a Haddonfield player who saw the video brought it to the attention of the Haddonfield school district. Haddonfield contacted St. Joseph school officials after the teams met the following day and the incident led to the suspension of several players, and coach Sacco was told he would have to sit out two games.
On Sept. 29, the Wildcats lost 21-15 to Haddonfield, and after a 21-7 win over Vineland the following week, on Oct. 13 St. Joseph was blasted 51-0 by West Deptford at home. Suddenly, the Wildcats had lost two of their last three games after that hot start, the perfect season was gone and even a spot in the postseason was in jeopardy.
“I think it was a big surprise last year that we were 12-0, but that group was a young group with some juniors and a couple of sophomores. I think coming into the season, we were all surprised that we were 12-0 (last year). Not that we weren’t capable of doing that, but the bar was raised and with everybody coming back everybody felt (we could go 12-0 again). We don’t talk about things like that. We don’t put extra pressure on the kids. We went to Connecticut (the first game) and get a big win there, it was 33-0 at halftime, then we come up with a couple more big wins — a big win on a messy day against a very good Millville team, then we go to St. Augustine and that was a game that kind of got out of hand and was a blowout. After that, I think some of our kids said, ‘you know what? We must be that good.’ I was worried about that all year long with this group and all of a sudden we stumbled with Haddonfield, we struggled with Vineland for a half, and then we had the problem,” Sacco said in a recent radio interview on 97.3 ESPN FM. “But things happen for a reason and this group needed something to happen. It’s a shame it went down like that. I don’t think I’ll ever not be bitter about the way that it did go down. I had no control of the situation, I was not there, but it’s done and over with and they rebounded against Timber Creek then went down to Holy Spirit and had a big win there. So we righted the ship and it went in the right direction. Hats off to Tucker Monico, a two-year starter, Brad Lomax, a three-year starter, Bobby Hyndman, a three-year starter, Wisdom Quarshie, a three-year starter, Sean Morris, a two-year starter.”
After the embarrassing loss to West Deptford, the Wildcats began to get back on track. They took down Timber Creek, 33-14, then scored a 28-14 road win at Holy Spirit to close out the regular season and grab the No. 1 seed in the Non-Public Group 2 playoffs. They ended up seeing Holy Spirit again in the championship game at MetLife Stadium after both teams rolled through the first two rounds of the playoffs, and in the end St. Joseph outlasted an inspired effort by the Spartans, winning 41-22 after Spirit had closed the gap to 26-22 with a third-quarter burst of offense. The Wildcats had their championship, but it didn’t come nearly as easily as anyone had predicted.
“This whole year seemed like it was just trying to get the ship righted. A lot of things happened during the season, but we came out and our whole thing was not to get off to a slow start like we normally do down there in Absecon, and Ahmad Ross picks off a pass and runs it in for a touchdown and we were up 8-0. But they came right back. We ended up getting two more touchdowns and were up 20-6 at halftime, but you’re not going to feel comfortable against a team that throws the ball like they do. We came out in the second half and our whole thing was let’s try and churn out some yardage here and eat up the third quarter, but we fumbled the football and the next thing you know we’re in a bad situation. It went back and forth, it was 26-22, but Ahmad Ross — I have to hand it to him, he’s been hurt with an ankle problem but he came up big for us. He and Jada are best friends and Ahmad breaking that long run really put us back in control, and they lost their quarterback at the end of the third quarter,” Sacco said.

“I have to give credit to our kids. Our kids were in a predicament where this thing was starting to go the other way and they just held on and kept coming back. That’s the resiliency of our program. They get down and are able to come back, and I think we showed that because of what happened this year. It’s a credit to the kids and my assistant coaches, and our fans.”
“It feels great. This is coach Sacco’s 20th state championship (since 1993), and I’m going to keep repeating myself — this feels great to be a part of this. This is a brotherhood for me, and coach Sacco always has my back, I have his back, and it just feels great and we’re going to celebrate this,” Byers said after the game.
“This is the best feeling in the world, senior year, going out on top. What a great game. Holy Spirit, wow, we were up for a little bit and they came battling back. That’s a tough team. E’lijah Gray is a helluva player, he’s really tough to take down. But, wow, this feels amazing. They showed good resiliency. That’s a good team, you can tell they are coached well and they have a great attitude, and you know they have to have all that to come back like that. But we kept ourselves together and won the game. I’m at a loss for words, it feels amazing to go back-to-back, I love it,” Hyndman added. “Today was a team effort, everyone from top to bottom played their hardest and that’s why we came out on top. The line did a great job — Wisdom and Sean holding it down, Brad and Keshon making the big plays when it counted, me, Angelo (Vokolos), Tyler, the linebackers held it down. And the defensive backs had some big turnovers which gave us some momentum.”
St. Joseph certainly will have some momentum heading into this offseason and although the Wildcats are graduating a lot of valuable seniors, the cupboard is far from bare, especially considering Byers — who set school records for single season rushing and touchdowns — returns for one more year in 2019. And all the returning players learned a valuable lesson this season — in the game of football, no matter how much talent you have on paper, you have to earn everything you get through hard work and trust in your teammates.
Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays