Area football preview: Lower hopes to surprise, Middle rebuilding with young roster, Wildwood with more experience

Posted: August 27th 2025

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CapeAtlanticLive.com

Cape May County has experienced beautiful beach weather this week. But at the same time, there’s been a crispness to the early-morning temperatures over the past few days, suggesting autumn is right around the corner.

That, of course, also means that high school football is just about to start in this area.

The following is a look at each of the area’s high school football teams, with each of the three set to begin the regular season this week:

LOWER CAPE MAY

Lower Cape May is experiencing a fresh start under a new coach in Billy Damiana. Damiana and the Lower Cape May sports community are hoping he can do the same with the football program as he’s done with the school’s wrestling program – turn it into an annual playoff qualifier.

Damiana, a Lower Cape May graduate and former standout player at Kean, served as an assistant coach under previous coach Lance Bailey, so he certainly has the experience to lead the group.

Lower experienced a rebuilding campaign last fall, going just 2-8 after back-to-back winning seasons. There is a decent number of players returning, so the Tigers are hoping for some improvement as they compete in the West Jersey Football League’s Liberty Division.

Some of the top returnees include seniors Jonathan Fernandez (WR/DB), Will Garoh (OL/DL), Max Bracken (RB/LB), Alex Nelson (RB/LB), Andrew Brandt (WR/DB) and Caden Britton (OL/DL); juniors David Douglass (QB/LB), Ryan Mallon (RB/DB), Cole Cooper (OL/DL), Cole Sederland (TE) and Jose Ramos (WR/DB); and sophomores Ashton Ray (RB/DB) and Cooper Milligan (RB/WR/DB).

The top newcomer is freshman Shane Lawler (OL/DL).

“Team chemistry and effort are two things I’m happy about right now, and our physicality in our first two scrimmages was pretty good, so hopefully we carry that into the season,” Damiana said. “We need to work on some things, like getting used to new verbiage and remaining consistent with everything. With me being a new head coach, there’s a bit of a culture change for some of the kids, especially the ones who aren’t used to me from wrestling. Everyone needs to get used to the standard that we’re trying to live up to.”

After winning just two games last season, expectations for Lower Cape May don’t seem to be that high. Damiana believes the team will be better than projected, however.

“We’re going to surprise people,” he said. “We’re going to play hard for each other and leave it all out there. There’s going to be no excuse making or finger pointing and we’re going to strive to do things the right way.”

Damiana is assisted by Sam Lawler, Paul Baruffi, Erich Wolf, Jim Gonzalez, Rob White and Scott Oster.

Lower opens the season Thursday at Pinelands, a Shore Conference team that finished 5-5 in 2024.

“We have a big test Thursday,” Damiana said. “Pinelands lost a lot of players but they have a head coach who’s very good and they’re going to be a challenge. We’re going to have to be ready to answer the bell.”

Lower’s first home game is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 5, against Gloucester.

MIDDLE TOWNSHIP

Middle Township qualified for the Group II playoffs for the fourth straight season last year, losing to Camden in the opening round. But this sets up as a classic rebuilding year for the Panthers under second-year head coach Gavin Liepe as approximately 85 to 90 percent of last season’s starting lineup was made up of seniors.

Some of the losses were big ones, including RB/DB Remi Rodriguez (over 1,500 yards from scrimmage and 12 TDs) and other standouts such as Maurice Matthews, Shaun Watkins, Micah McAnaney and Aydan Howell.

Middle does feature one of the WJFL Liberty Division’s top skill players in senior Chase Moore (WR/DB), who tied for the team lead with three touchdown receptions and also intercepted five passes on defense.

Other top seniors include Noah Nagle (TE/LB), John Kelly (OL/DL), Jazir Matthews (OL/DL) and Joe Bockius (QB). Juniors expected to play key roles include Davon Anderson (RB/LB), Tyler King (WR/DB) and Ayden Edwards (RB/LB). Sophomores being counted on to contribute include Josh Linhares (OL/DL), Hunter White (RB/LB) and Seth Germainio (WR/DB). Freshman Robert Hodges (OL/DL) and Kaleb Lombardo (OL/DL) are expected to make an immediate impact.

A number of other younger players are going to see significant playing time.

“We’re super young, with a lot of kids who are going to be around for the next two or three years, so we’re excited to get them the experience,” Liepe said. “But we have a lot of young, inexperienced guys stepping into prominent roles, especially on the offensive and defensive lines. The biggest challenge has been teaching the fundamentals and getting the techniques right in the trenches as fast as possible.

“We have some key guys returning skill-wise. Chase Moore being back is huge for us, and Davon Anderson has played a lot on defense for us and now we’re expecting him to step up at running back for us, too.”

Middle will do its best to compete while also building for the future.

“We’re throwing a lot of young guys right into the fire here, trying to develop them as fast as we can and getting them ready to play varsity football,” Liepe said. “We’re going to try to be as competitive as we can against every team we face, while at the same time we’re really going to feed these young guys some varsity experience and get them ready to go for the rest of their careers.”

Liepe is assisted by James Marcheski, Ryan Freyer, Colin Ramage, Chris Lewis, Carson Caffrey, Nick Eidenberg and Derm Pali.

The Panthers open the season Thursday evening at Gateway. The contest was originally scheduled to be at home but issues with Memorial Field moved the game to Gateway.

Middle’s first home game is set for Friday, Sept. 5, against Triton. 

WILDWOOD

This year’s Wildwood team has something most of its previous teams over the past couple of decades usually didn’t – experience.

There’s a nice buzz around the Warriors this preseason because of it, leading to speculation that the team could do as well as challenging for the West Jersey Football League’s United Division title despite being the smallest public school in South Jersey with a football team.

“I think we can,” said Wildwood coach Ken Loomis, now in his 10th season in charge. “The schedule falls nicely for us. We have six home games, so we don’t have to worry about the travel too much. The cards fell right in that aspect for us.”

Wildwood started quite a few sophomores and juniors in what ended as a 2-6 campaign a year ago. Many of those players are expected to take the next step in order to help the program improve.

Seniors Jordan Dozier (QB), Eric Jordan (OL/DL), Liam Carmel (OL/LB) and Justice Santiago (WR/LB) are all multi-year starters. Senior Ryan Gilligan (OL/DL), who transferred into Wildwood prior to last school year, is also a returning starter. Juniors with significant varsity experience include Trevor Troiano (WR/LB), Gianni Troiano (WR/DB), Alex Ruiz (WR/DB) and Vinni Fusco-Sweeney (WR/LB). Sophomore Jayvion Hennessy (RB/LB) is also a returning starter.

“It’s good to have the experience,” Loomis said. “We have around eight returning starters on both sides of the ball and almost all of them already have been starting for two or three years, so they’ve played a lot of games. I think we’re as physically mature as we’ve been to start a season. We’re very excited to get going.”

In addition to having an experienced roster, Wildwood is also enjoying the influx of one of its deeper freshmen classes in recent years. Two of them, Matthew Maher (TE/WR/LB) and Joey Martin (OL/DL), are expected to see significant time.

Loomis said Wildwood is being helped immensely by the addition of former longtime Middle Township head coach Frank Riggitano to the coaching staff. He said Riggitano has helped drastically improve Wildwood’s special teams play, along with contributions in many other aspects of the game.

“Having someone like him who’s been through all of this with us as another full-time staff member has been great,” Loomis said. “He’s worked with the kickers and special teams and he’s really helping us develop that. Having him around really helps us delegate things at practice and we’re able to get more done.”

The team’s other assistant coaches are Kevin Atkinson, Dom Troiano and Jimmy Purcell.

Wildwood opens the season Friday at home at 10 a.m. against Maple Shade. The team has played games prior to Labor Day before but Loomis feels this year’s team is much better prepared for the task than in the past.

“Being this ready to play a Week 0 game is new for us,” Loomis said. “We’ve always had challenges getting kids out in the summer. But this year they’ve all been out and they’re dedicated and they’re ready to go. The fact that we’re ready to rock and roll before Labor Day weekend is a huge step for our program from when I first started nine years ago.”

Friday’s Maple Shade-Wildwood game will be broadcast live by CapeAtlanticLive.com.