On Friday night, the Patriots took on the Ridgewood Maroons in a tough fight, exciting students from both sides.

The game ended in a loss after the Maroons scored a touchdown in overtime making the final score 14-7. In the first half, Ridgewood quarterback Dan Caifa threw a touchdown pass to Brendan Chanley for the first score of the game. But the Patriots responded back quickly with quarterback Joe Riina throwing a 34-yard touchdown pass for Tay Shim to tie the game.

The Wayne Hills student section, wearing cowboy hats and flannel shirts, got fired up. Students from both schools began chanting back and forth on the stands towards the end of the second quarter, causing some tension. 

As the first half came to an end, students from Wayne Hills ran over to the Ridgewood student section, and both sides began to scream in defense of whose school/team was “better.” Although the students were quickly separated by school staff, and the game continued on.

Senior Julie Jenkins said, “We were all chanting, and then all I saw as the clock ran down, was our section running to the other side. I did not know what was going on, but I followed.”

“Students obviously were heated up from the tied game,” as Ssenior Becky Jenkins said, “Ridgewood’s section was talking  a lot before the game about how they were going to crush us, so I think we were all just mad that they thought the game would’ve been an easy win.”

Despite their loss, the football team was definitely happy that the student section showed out to support them. At the end of the day, we are just one school, dressing up and showing out to these games to have fun and show our support.