Chatham Football Passes First Test of the 2024 Season; Cougar Senior Riso: 'This is the best first scrimmage I've ever seen'

CHATHAM, NJ -- The nice weather made it feel like it was fall football season and the 2024 Chatham team enjoyed the experience of its first action against another opponent on Tuesday in a quad scrimmage at Cougar Field.

Senior two-way lineman Eric Riso was feeling optimistic after the Cougars bumped helmets with the squads from Madison, Trenton and West Milford stating: "This is the best first scrimmage I've ever seen."

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Chatham did score eight touchdowns in the controlled scrimmage, led by three touchdown passes by senior quarterback Will Allen and two TD receptions apiece by tight ends Tommy Douglas (see one below) and Hunter Bigham . The first unit of the Cougar defense was unscored upon.

Evan Picariello , entering his fourth season as the Chatham head football coach, quickly threw cold water on Riso's assessment.

"For a first scrimmage, it's a little sloppy," Picariello said. "I thought we played with poor pad level, our tackling has got to improve, and we have to stay on our blocks. We need to improve a lot of the fundamental stuff that we've been working on all camp and we're going to continue to work on. Those are the things that we definitely need to improve."

Still, Chatham set a good ground floor to build on, moving the ball offensively and playing solid team defense.

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"It's great quality work to have three other teams come in here, it's round-robin and you play everybody, offense, defense, specials," Picariello said. "Our younger guys got reps. Good quality work today. I like what I saw out there."

Caden Gabriele rushes in for the score for Chatham vs. Trenton

Nick Lagunowich pulls in the TD pass from Will Allen

Ryan Carey catches the touchdown pass from Michael MacAniff for Chatham

COUGAR NOTES : Chatham quarterbacks threw for six touchdowns in the quad scrimmage with senior Will Allen throwing three of the scores, one each to Hunter Bigham , Nick Lagunowich and Tommy Douglas ; junior Michael MacAniff threw for two TDs, one to Bigham and one to Ryan Carey ; sophomore Ryan Hogan connected with Douglas for a score ... Hogan also came up with an interception while playing defense ... sophomore Conall Curry made an interception for the Cougar JV and sophomore Will Richie scored a rushing touchdown and also forced a fumble that he recovered himself for Chatham ... the Cougars will travel to Randolph for a 6 p.m. controlled scrimmage on Friday ... Chatham will also scrimmage Summit at home at 4 p.m. on Aug. 29 before the season opener Sept. 7 at 1 p.m. vs. Morris Hills at Cougar Field.

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