Somerville’s Brenden Pacheco needed just 24 minutes to log 5 TDs, earn Week 5 Bellamy & Son Paving Player of Week Award

Five touchdowns by any player in a game is a pretty good number to put yourself in serious running for a player of the week award. But to do it in one half?

That’s what senior quarterback Brenden Pacheco did last week for then-No. 3 Somerville in a 41-0 win over visiting Summit at Brooks Field. He had four passing touchdowns of 44, 65, 18 and 57 yards, in that order, while also scoring on a nine-yard touchdown run.

Overall, he was 7-of-13 passing for 205 yards, while rushing five times for 68, a total of 273 yards from scrimmage.

And all that came as the Pioneers built up a 41-0 lead in the first half – playing more than half of the game with a running clock – and improved their record to 6-0.

All that has earned Brenden Pacheco of Somerville Bellamy & Son Paving Player of the Week honors for Week 5.

Somerville hosts North Hunterdon (2-4) this Thursday night back at Brooks Field.

Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko’s interview with Week Five Bellamy & Son Paving Player of the Week Brenden Pacheco of Somerville:

The Bellamy & Son Paving Player of the Week is chosen from nominees by Big Central coaches. At the end of the season, one player will be chosen to receive a $500 scholarship courtesy of Bellamy & Son Paving. As always, we will recognize selected “Honorable Mentions,” and recognize all other all nominees in our weekly story.

Honorable Mentions:

• Na’quavere Thomas, Manville: IN a 41-20 home win over JP Stevens last Friday, the senior fullback led a big night with 396 team yards of total offense. Thomas rushed for 158 yards on 18 carries with touchdown runs of three and six yards. He also had two catches for 36 yards, one of which was a 25-yard touchdown catch. Defensively, at defensive tackle, Thomas recorded five tackles, three solo.
• Ryan Turner, Ridge: The senior H-back rushed four times for 175 yards and two touchdowns, while also grabbing a 47-yard touchdown pass, in a 49-7 win over Union Friday night. He also had two kickoff returns for 69 yards. It all added up to 275 all-purpose yards on seven touches, with 3 TDs, an average of 39 yards per touch! Turner now has scored nine touchdowns in the last two weeks.
• Chukwuma Odoh, St. Thomas Aquinas: With Chase Young out after collapsing on the field during the Trojans’ Week Four game at Elizabeth, the sophomore running back helped his team push Paramus Catholic down to the wire in overtime. He ran 28 times for 168 yards and two touchdowns. He “ran hard all night and kept us in the game,” says head coach Tarig Holman. His second TD gave Aquinas a chance to win, coming on fourth-and-goal from the three in overtime. But St. Thomas had a two-point throw broken up toe end the game, a 35-34 OT loss to the Paladins.
• Landon Pernell, Piscataway: The sophomore quarterback was 13-of-17 for 262 yards and three touchdowns last Friday night in a 42-13 win at Sayreville. He found Zaire Young from 15 yards out, Jahai Johnson on a 25-yard strike, and Sean Love with a 35-yard TD pass, while also running for an 18-yard score – the longest run of his career. Ultimately, he tallied 262 yards of offense, the third best single-game mark in school history. The record holder is Chet Trechock, who accumulated 339 against Franklin in 1982, followed by Jamie Scholz’s 308 against East Brunswick in 1994.

Other Notable Performances:

• Max Austin, Bernards: The senior defensive back had a big night in a 28-0 Homecoming win over South Plainfield Friday night. He picked off two passes – and now has five INTs on the season – and also had a fumble, a TFL (his third of the season) and two catches on offense. But his defensive efforts have been key for a Mountaineer team that has not allowed a point in the first half of any of their six games all year.
• Alessandro Spera, Montgomery: The senior wide receiver had four catches for 129 yards and a touchdown – for 80 – that gave the struggling Cougars their first leas of the season. Spera also had ten tackles from his safety position in a 13-10 loss to Linden this past Saturday, a year after the teams played to an epic 42-42 tie a year ago in Week Seven.
• A.J. Whitehead, New Providence: In a 26-19 win over Middlesex Friday night, the junior runningback was a workhorse, carrying 23 times for 143 yards and three touchdowns, of eight, eight and ten yards. His efforts were big in the second half, with the Pioneers trailing 19-7 in the third quarter: Whitehead had over 100 yards in the second half and scored two unanswered touchdowns for the win.
• Antonio Sauchelli, North Hunterdon: In a 22-21 win at Monroe last week, the junior wideout grabbed eight catches for 149 yards and three touchdowns.
• Stephen Henits, Spotswood: In a 28-0 win at Bound Brook, the senior wideout grabbed four passes for 99 yards, with three of them going for touchdowns, and even drew a defensive pass interference on another deep ball.
• Matteo Tramutola, Voorhees: The junior runningback helped the Vikings get back to the .500 mark with a 47-22 win over North Plainfield last Friday night by tying his own school record with five touchdowns in the game. He carried 23 times for 249 yards and four touchdowns, and made just one catch – a 58-yard TD grab. To add to it, he had a sack and three tackles from his linebacker position.