High School Football: Moorestown Survives Cougars' Final Effort Friday, November 5, 2004 By Jerome Michaels SJSports Special Correspondent It was a game that one team seem to have full control of and the other team being controlled. Cherry Hill East has been struggling this season winning only one game this season and found themselves down by fourteen points at halftime at Moorestown High School. The Cougars didn't play like their record would indicate and rallied setting up a game typing two point conversion. The Quakers would find a way to come out on top despite giving up three second half touchdowns. Moorestown survived and came away with the 28-26 victory. Moorestown is a team that has qualified for the upcoming Group 3 playoffs and is division champions along with Burlington Township in the Burlco/Olympic League Patriot Division. The first half of their football game started out with Moorestown marching down the field in the first quarter and scoring the first touchdown of the game on 6 yard run by Kyle Hadden. East would tie the game still in the same quarter and surprisingly we were all even on Allesandro Valentino’s 30 yard scamper. That’s when it appeared that the Quakers began not taking this team lightly and began to pull away. A pair of touchdown passes from quarterback Bryan Hayes to his brother Eric Hayes and Moorestown would take a 21-7 lead at the break. East came out of the locker room with a new found confidence and it showed on the field. Two third quarter touchdowns and the Cougars were right back in this game. Kevin Juinta finished off the first scoring drive with a 5 yard run and then completed a 23 yard reception in the endzone and East only trailed by one, 21-20, after a failed extra point attempt. Al Pierce would give the Quakers breathing room during the beginning of the final quarter when he scored a 2 yard rushing touchdown. Surprisingly, the Cougars just kept charging. With less than three minutes remaining in the game, Valentino scored from 8 yards out and the only thing left was a two point conversion to tie this game. But a bad exchange on the attempt left East unable to recover the on-side kickoff and ended their chances for an upset. Photos by Mark Fletcher