SEABROOK—When you’re in charge of rebuilding a football program with young talent, you’re going to see failures, but you’ll also see success. This is precisely where St. Joseph’s Academy is at, but their consistent hard work each week pays off on the field. The team took on Cumberland High School on Friday, September 20 and took their fourth loss of the season, 28-7. Regardless of the outcome, adjustments and improvements are being made each week, Wildcats football coach Ron Dorsey reassures. “We fine-tuned our offense this week. We wanted to make sure. We thought we could do a few more things against this team, but tonight it just didn’t work out and that’s OK,” Dorsey said. One of the major struggles came from the team giving up early last week, to which that changed tonight. “I told you last week a couple kids quit, this week they fought all the way to the end and to lose the way we did, it’s hard to find the words to say to them to encourage them. Every day they come to work ready to practice and ready to go and that’s all we can do; that’s all we can ask for,” he continued. Cumberland was up three scores with five minutes to go in the half, and St. Joseph answered with Anthony Salamone hitting Keaton Doyle on a 60-yard touchdown pass to put the Wildcats on the board. On the next Cumberland drive, Doyle caught an interception to hopefully change the momentum going into the half. “It all comes from film study. We have to go back and talk with Anthony, [Salamone] our quarterback and sit down with him, make sure he knows where his reads were. But it’s all about film and it’s all about breaking it down,” Coach Dorsey said. The reps from practice going into the next week will be focused specifically on these takeaways from the game. The Wildcats’ struggles in the second half kept them from scoring, but only allowed Cumberland to go up one more touchdown. “I’ve never seen him run so fast. I thought we had [the momentum] after that touchdown. But we lost steam in the fourth quarter,” Dorsey said. “But this is a great group of guys and we’re building every week,” Cumberland High School running back RJ Pierce had a fantastic four-touchdown game. St. Joseph’s Academy will host Lower Cape May Regional High School next Friday, August 27 at 6 p.m. This article was produced in collaboration with New Jersey Civic Information Consortium and Rowan University.