MONTCLAIR- It almost seems like light years ago now as far as when Montclair High was so close to earning what every New Jersey high school football team seeks to achieve: a sectional playoff championship.
Actually, it was less than two years ago, on Nov. 10, 2023, when the Mounties held an early fourth quarter lead vs. state titan Passaic Tech in their NJSIAA North 1, Group 5 final on a bright fall evening at the Bulldogs’ spacious Wayne campus.
Quarterback Malachi ‘Bubba’ Lewis, the grandson of Mountie immortal Aubrey Lewis, was firing pinpoint passes for key completions to talented wide outs David Thom-Rogers and Jace Auletta, along with the swift slot receiver Jayden Lee.
All was looking rather rosy for MHS before a couple of critical plays on both sides of the ball that provided new life for PCT led to the favored Bulldogs earning a 34-27 triumph and move on to the Group 5 semifinals, while MHS headed home dejected, but also able to take pride in what had been a strong late-season run which saw the Mounties win a thrilling, last-second, sectional semifinal at Watchung Hills and finish a respectable 8-4.
Last fall was not nearly as productive as the Mounties struggled early and never really got into full gear. Bubba Lewis had transferred in the winter to Homestead, Fla., for his senior season, and the team just didn’t click while missing other key departed veterans such as Thom-Rogers who was at West Point Prep and is now a freshman member of Army’s football team.
MHS finished a rather pedestrian 4-6 in 2024, while seeing the season end with a 28-14 N1G5 playoff loss at archrival East Orange Campus in a first-round playoff contest after having defeated the Jaguars, 19-12, in a regular season meeting more than a month earlier.
The Mounties did finish a very respectable 4-1 in the Freedom Red, falling only to division champion West Orange (5-0) in the SFC’s assemblage of Essex County Group 5 schools.
In the next few months MHS underwent more major changes as last year’s starting QB, rising junior Jaylin Bullock, decided to transfer to Seton Hall Prep along with promising junior wide receiver Sebastian Cox. For Bullock SHP is his third school in three years after he spent his freshman year at St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City.
Adding to the off-season changes, head coach Jermain Johnson decided in May to resign for personal reasons after three seasons (2022-2024) at the helm.
Montclair High’s new ‘interim’ head coach Ron Anello is a very familiar face to the local scene as he grew up in town while also being an outstanding lineman for MHS in the early 1970s, while his family legacy dates back to his dad, Bull Anello, who was a starting lineman for the Mounties’ first undefeated team in 1943, a unit coached by Butch Fortunato when his boss, Clary Anderson, was fulfilling his military commitments during World War II.
Ron and his brother Michael Anello also both played for Fortunato.
After graduating from MHS in 1976, before enjoying a fine college playing career as a center at both Montclair State and The College of New Jersey, Ron coached for Fortunato in 1982 and ‘83 before embarking on his own successful coaching and school administrative career, including stints as the head coach at both West Essex and Clifton and then as the athletic director, first at Wallkill Valley in Sussex County, and then at Ramapo in Franklin Lakes.
