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Salem locks up elusive Week Zero game with Pennsylvania charter school, has full nine-game slate

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

SALEM – Danny Mendoza has wanted to play a Week Zero game since the day he arrived as Salem’s new football coach, but it has been a difficult search. He finally found one, but, sticking to the theme for his first season, they had to go out of state to do it.

The Rams completed their 2023 football schedule shortly before opening fall camp when they landed an Aug. 25 game with Executive Education Academy Charter School of Allentown, Pa. The game will be played in Lafayette College’s Fisher Stadium.

“We just want to have the opportunity to play Week Zero and dictate our own destiny,” said Mendoza, who was formally approved in June to succeed Montrey Wright as head coach. “We don’t want our kids to lose games with the way they’ve got this schedule set up.”

The Rams were going to be a bunch of road warriors this season as it was as they await the completion of their football stadium later this fall, but with the addition of this game they now will travel 688 round-trip miles in the regular season and have three trips of 120 miles or more .

They will play in three states and in two college stadiums. Besides the game at Lafayette – where offensive line coach Eric Fizur is an alum – they will play in Rutgers’ SHI Stadium Sept. 23. They also have a game at Abessinio Stadium in Wilmington Sept. 2.

Mendoza said the Rams looked far and wide to find a game but even though it seemed many South Jersey teams didn’t have a Week Zero game they got no takers. They almost had a game with Neptune, taking Mendoza back to his old stomping grounds, but it fell through. 

Finally, they found the Raptors on an Eastern Pennsylvania open date website and made the connection for a one-time game. EEACS is a third-year football program that has had two winning seasons and went 8-4 a year ago. 

“We were checking through the mud for stuff, just trying to find anything,” Mendoza said. “We reached out to everybody. Everybody.

“Our kids are going to have to play in some environments and really understand you have to take this as a chip on our shoulders and embrace being road warriors and understand if we can play away in different environments and come out successful that’s going to build us up to, God willing, a long postseason and maybe be able to earn some home games in the playoffs.”

The Rams have only two home games this season, on back-to-back weeks in October. Athletics director Darryl Roberts said the stadium project is on track and he anticipates it being ready by mid-September.

The team just completed its second day of fall camp and Mendoza said things were progressing “surprisingly well.”

“They’re taking to our practice tempo, they’re taking to the new style of offense and defense that we’re going to play,” he said. “They’re flying around, a lot of energy … and definitely on the right track to put ourselves in a good position to be successful.”

Photo: The football team from Executive Education Academy Charter School lines up for a play. Salem landed the Raptors for its Week Zero game this season. (EEACS website photo)

DATE	SALEM SCHEDULE	MILES
Aug. 25	vs. Executive Education Academy; Lafayette College	107
Sept. 2	vs. Camden; Abessinio Stadium, Wilmington	21
Sept. 8	at Pleasantville	61
Sept. 16	at Penns Grove	13
Sept. 23	vs. Cedar Creek; SHI Stadium, New Brunswick	97
Sept. 29	at Woodstown	14
Oct. 7	vs. Paulsboro	HOME
Oct. 14	vs. West Deptford	HOME
Oct. 21	at Woodbury	31