Quiros breaks Hoboken scoring mark; football power point update
Someone said ages ago that records are made to be broken, so when Hoboken boys’ soccer coach Matthew Percontino set the school record for career goals with 97 when he graduated in 1970, he knew that someday his record would fall.
Little did he know that it would take 33 years to find someone to topple the mark.
But the record finally fell last week when Red Wing super scorer Josue Quiros scored his 31st goal of the season, giving him 98 goals for his fabulous career.
Quiros also broke Percontino’s single season mark a year ago, when Quiros went right by Percontino’s record of 31, on his way to scoring an astounding 58 goals, the seventh highest single scoring total in New Jersey history.
Ironically, Quiros then tops Percontino’s all-time mark with his 31st goal this season.
Meanwhile, the Red Wings are currently rolling along with a 12-1 record, thanks to the talented Quiros’ goal-scoring prowess.
Football power point update: After winning two straight games, the Bruins of North Bergen have climbed back into contention for their 16th straight appearance in the NJSIAA North Jersey Section 1, Group IV playoffs, although they will need some serious help.
The Bruins, now 3-3, are currently 10th in the playoff standings, less than a point behind Emerson, which stands at ninth with a 3-1-1 record. Emerson also has to play one more game than the Bruins.
But what appeared bleak two weeks now has life.
In North Section 2, Group 1, Hoboken is second behind undefeated Ridgefield Park. The Red Wings will clinch a berth with one more win. Secaucus is sitting pretty in seventh in the same bracket. Weehawken is ninth, looking in right now and will need some help.
Undefeated St. Peter’s Prep, which just continues to roll along and has yet to surrender a point, has already clinched a berth in Parochial Group 4, along with Hudson Catholic, which still hasn’t lost and owns a 5-0-1 record. Hudson Catholic and St. Peter’s face each other this weekend. So much for the unbeaten mark for the Hawks.
Bordering on the shocking: While looking through the preseason rosters of NBA teams, there was one particular name jumped off the page.Josh Moore is a member of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Yes, it is the same Josh Moore who played for St. Anthony High School about six years ago, the same 7-foot Moore who found his way out of St. Anthony because he couldn’t wake up in time to get to school.
It’s also the same Moore who first went to Rutgers, left there, had a cup of coffee at UCLA, left there, and ended up playing for Tommy Amaker at the University of Michigan for two years, seeing very limited time.
But the lowly Clippers don’t have a true center on their roster, so considering Moore is still 7-0, he has a shot to stick. It just goes to show you that you definitely can’t teach height. If Moore makes the NBA, it’s a blow to all the other hard-working players who would give their right arm for a shot.
Speaking of getting a shot, North Bergen’s Rick Apodaca went to training camp with the Orlando Magic, but he was recently released. There’s an example of someone who has worked harder in the game than Josh Moore. But Apodaca’s not 7-0. Case closed.
Hudson County lost two true sports legends recently, when Howard Wimpy and Joe Brown passed away.
If you participated in any Jersey City Recreation event in the last 50 years, you knew the man affectionately known as “Wimpy,” because he was at practically every single sporting event all that time.
Wimpy would show up at the events with his truck that he sold anything and everything from, usually milk and dairy products, but he was such a big sports fan and supporter that he went out of his way to help kids.
Back in the 1940s, Wimpy started a semipro baseball team, called the Cloverdales, named after the Cloverdale Dairy he started. One of the players who played for Wimpy’s Cloverdale team was Johnny Kucks, who went on to play for the New York Yankees, winning 18 games in 1955.
“Whenever there was a baseball game, there’d be Wimpy,” said his long-time friend Charlie Straub, a league official with the Pershing Field Babe Ruth Baseball League. “He loved baseball and he loved kids.”
Joe Brown, a native of Jersey City, was the president of the New Jersey Amateur American Baseball Congress (AABC), an organization that many Hudson County teams participate in, like Connie Mack, Stan Musial and Sandy Koufax baseball.
In fact, Brown was one of the driving forces in bringing the Sandy Koufax World Series to Jersey City in the late 1990s, where it remained for seven years.
“He never wanted to be in the limelight, but he was one of the best friends Hudson County baseball ever had,” said Harvey Zucker, who worked closely with Brown in bringing the Koufax Series to the area, as well as working on the state board of the AABC. “When other parts of the state would knock Hudson County, he would always be its greatest protector. It’s a big loss to the state of New Jersey.”
This reporter knew both men very well and it is a gigantic loss for youth sports. They will be forever remembered. Are there any bigger sports fans than the trio of bartenders, namely Meghan Salmon, Dusty Weideman and Nola Randall, who grace the stick at Texas Arizona in Hoboken? The three beauties are big sports fans and avid readers of this column and if they’re not the biggest sports fans in Hudson County, then they’re definitely the most beautiful.
—Jim Hague