Schalick senior standout Siedlecki reflects on the Cougars’ journey from winless afterthought to undefeated contender for section championship
GROUP I SECTIONAL FINALS
Friday’s Games
South: Woodbury Thundering Herd (6-3) at Woodstown Wolverines (8-2), 7 p.m.
Central: Glassboro Bulldogs (7-3) at Schalick Cougars (11-0), 7 p.m.
North I: Mountain Lakes Herd (8-2) at Hawthorne Bears (8-2), 6 p.m.
North II: Shabazz Bulldogs (7-3) at Butler Bulldogs (9-1), 7 p.m.
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PITTSGROVE – Jake Siedlecki is one of those players who believes nothing worth having comes without hard work. And it has taken a lot of work to get where the Schalick senior and his teammates find themselves today.
Although it seems like a lifetime ago now, it was really only four years ago, when Siedlecki was a wide-eyed freshman, the Cougars football team was a winless afterthought in the landscape of South Jersey football.
Siedlecki was in his first year playing football recovering from a baseball elbow injury, Mike Wilson was just coming aboard as the head coach, COVID was creating chaos with everyone’s workout regimens and the roster was as small as the program’s current freshman group is large.
The Cougars were getting beaten like a rented mule. Their scores were ridiculously one-sided. They were one of 23 teams that played in 2020 that didn’t win a game.
On Friday, when they host Glassboro in the Central Jersey Group I championship game, they will be one of 10 remaining undefeated teams in the state and their journey to get there will have come full circle. Ironically, the Bulldogs, now with a former Schalick player at the helm, was the first team the Cougars played in that dreadful 2020 season, losing 54-7.
Most people would want to forget that whole experience, but the Cougars embrace it as part of their journey back to respectability.
Siedlecki doesn’t have to go far to find a reminder of those difficult days. Every day before he leaves for school he sees a Senior Night picture of brother Mack, a senior on that 2020 team, in the No. 2 jersey Jake proudly represents today.
“Even though it seems like a long time ago, I think it’s important for me and the leaders of the football team and Coach Wilson, obviously, to keep what happened that freshman year and coach’s first year fresh in our minds,” the 6-1, 180-pound tight end/safety said. “That gives us an edge over a lot of these other teams in the playoffs that are expected to win.
“We’re not expected to be here. No one believes in us. No one wants to give us any credit. Knowing where we came from gives us an edge against the other teams because we know what it’s like to be at the bottom.
“When I see that picture I know that’s where we were. That’s the jersey my brother wore and he fought in. Now I’m No. 2. Now I’m a senior. Now I get to fight for a championship. Every day I see that picture in the house it reminds me of the struggle, the work my brother put in and he never got to experience where I’m at right now. He would have done anything to be where I’m at right now. I don’t take that for granted.”
Similarly, Wilson has a picture of that first team in his classroom along with the three that have followed it and uses the images to reflect on the progress of what he has been given credit for building. None of the other teams in the state that were oh-for that year are undefeated in 2023. Only seven have winning records.
“I’ve said this to people multiple times,” Wilson said. “When I took over the program my goal wasn’t to build a team, my goal was to build a program. We want to build a lasting program where what we’re doing this year needs to become the new normal. We want to be involved in sectional championship conversation every year.
“We want every year that we’re not rebuilding, we’re reloading. The standard needs to become sectional championships, where if you don’t get there, then we’re going why didn’t you get there. I want the expectations that we’ve got to be there.”
The Cougars have five seniors on this year’s roster, but Siedlecki and tight end/defensive end Ryan Johnson are the only two who were on that first team. Receiver and cornerback Nasir Sutton came out as a freshman, but wasn’t able to play.
Wilson praised their resiliency and commitment to something bigger than themselves. And it has been rewarded in their play. In his last four games alone, Siedlecki has caught seven passes for 160 yards and two touchdowns and had 18 tackles and three interceptions, including one he returned for a touchdown against Gloucester Catholic and one in the final minute that sealed their second-round win over Shore Regional.
It was tough that first year. The Cougars’ approach was no different than it is now and they tried real hard, but undermanned as they were they lost by scores of 54-7, 49-6, 48-6, 56-14 right out of the gate. They actually lost their first 11 games over two seasons – scoring only eight touchdowns – and 13 of their first 14. Opponents were making fun of them and getting louder each week.
That was “probably the most difficult thing to go through as a group,” Siedlecki admitted. But he stuck with it, he said, because of the optimism and leadership Wilson demonstrated through it all. It was the kind of thing, reflecting on it now, that makes them even prouder of where they are today on the cusp of a sectional title.
With their coach’s enthusiasm to guide them, they knew the worm would turn – and it did. The Cougars won their last three games of that second season and now have the last laugh, going 21-3 in their last 24 games.
“It was unfortunate we got our butts kicked, but the whole time we knew if we just kept our head down, kept pushing forward, we’d be in a better place,” Siedlecki said. “We knew at the time if we just trusted in coach Wilson and gave it 110 percent in the weight room that over the course of time we’d get better and that’s what ended up happening.
“We knew what was coming. I didn’t know that we knew how fast it would come. It was hard then losing every game, sometimes it was frustrating, but we held together and it paid off.”
From oh-for to undefeated
A progression of teams statewide that were winless in 2020 to this season
| TEAM | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
| Schalick | 0-7 | 4-6 | 7-3 | 11-0 |
| Barringer | 0-3 | 0-10 | 4-6 | 3-6 |
| Bergen Tech | 0-2 | 1-7 | 3-4 | 1-8 |
| Chatham | 0-7 | 6-4 | 6-4 | 4-7 |
| Ferris | 0-4 | 0-9 | 0-9 | 0-8 |
| Hunterdon Cent. | 0-6 | 2-8 | 4-6 | 6-4 |
| Immaculata | 0-7 | 7-3 | 4-6 | 6-3 |
| Indian Hills | 0-5 | 4-5 | 4-5 | 5-4 |
| J.P. Stevens | 0-4 | 0-9 | 0-8 | 0-11 |
| Kearny | 0-4 | 1-7 | 2-6 | 1-8 |
| Lindenwold | 0-8 | 1-8 | 0-9 | 1-9 |
| Manchester Reg. | 0-6 | 3-7 | 0-9 | 4-4 |
| Manville | 0-5 | 6-3 | 8-2 | 3-7 |
| Metuchen | 0-7 | 4-7 | 4-7 | 5-5 |
| Morristown | 0-3 | 1-9 | 3-7 | 4-6 |
| Newark Cent. | 0-6 | 2-8 | 3-7 | 5-4 |
| Oakcrest | 0-7 | 3-7 | 7-4 | 5-5 |
| Paramus Cath. | 0-6 | 0-9 | 2-7 | 3-8 |
| Pascack Hills | 0-4 | 4-6 | 7-1 | 8-2 |
| Ridgefield Park | 0-3 | 8-3 | 4-5 | 2-7 |
| St. Mary (Ruth.) | 0-4 | 1-5 | 2-6 | 6-5 |
| Sussex Tech | 0-5 | 3-7 | 2-8 | 7-4 |
| Westfield | 0-2 | 4-6 | 8-3 | 5-5 |
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