Somerville's Joe Ciempola voted Courier News Football Player of the Week

Tuesday was Election Day, and thousands of New Jersey residents went to schools, libraries and senior citizen centers to vote for governor and other offices. Somerville High School football fans took to the Internet, lobbying for their candidate, junior Joe Ciempola for the Courier News/Mid-State 37 Football Player of the Week.

His football-based platform? 

“Scoring touchdowns,” Ciempola said. “Making tackles and winning games.”

Check, check and check.

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Ciempola and the Pioneers had a stirring comeback win last Saturday that has the school and team still buzzing. Down 36-15 in the fourth quarter against Summit, the Pioneers scored 27 straight points to win 42-36 in overtime. Somerville fans packed the away stands and cheered and chanted to lift their team.

The receiver/linebacker snagged four catches for 124 yards with three touchdowns and had six tackles. In overtime, he swatted a pass on the goal line on a fourth-and-2 that clinched the victory. 

“It was a suspenseful game,” Ciempola said. “Everyone was on their toes the whole time. … The game was really fun. That was probably the most fun game I ever played. The whole game, even when we were down, was actually fun because it was really good competition. It was really a playoff atmosphere game.”

For his efforts, Ciempola won the five-player ballot with 36.31 percent of the 71,605 votes cast when the poll closed at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Manville’s Shane Demeter garnered 35.18 percent followed by Justin Torres of South Hunterdon with 16.13 percent.

Ciempola's 26,003 votes were more than some of the winning politicians received. He said teachers and students, some who he didn’t know, approached him in school to say they voted for him. It was everyone’s win. It’s just been one of those magical seasons for Somerville (8-1), which has included an 82-46 victory over Scotch Plains-Fanwood on Oct. 28.

Next up is the Central Group III playoffs. The second-seeded Pioneers host seventh-seeded Ewing on Friday.

“We knew we had to go into the playoffs with a win, because going in with a loss would be terrible,” Ciempola said. “And then we scored – I don’t even know – like 1,000 touchdowns each in practice. So we just kind of did what we do and kept scoring. I mean all we do in practice is run routes and do our plays and we finally put it all together and we finally made some big plays.”

He makes it sound easy, but the team showed heart. It would have been easy to pack it in with a playoff spot already clinched.

“We never really quit,” Ciempola said. “Our coaches kept on getting on us. And they were like, ‘It’s not bad. It’s only three scores away. We got this.’”

On the final play, Ciempola stayed back as the other linebackers blitzed. He looked up and saw the ball in the air. His left hand went up and he jumped backward.

“I kind of just saw the ball there and I just swatted it down,” he said. “We really played as if it was a playoff game. We never gave up the whole game.”

What added to the drama was that Summit blocked Somerville’s extra point after its overtime touchdown. So Summit (6-2), which is the No. 4 seed in the North 2 Group III bracket, just needed a PAT to win. Enter instincts and guts.

“He reacted like a football player is supposed to react,” Somerville coach Jeff Vanderbeek said. “There wasn’t a lot of thought involved. That position is really a read and react position. So he did what his job was and did what he was coached, and reached up and knocked the ball down. … He’s a hard-nosed kid. He’s a smart kid.”

As a freshman, he showed his potential by catching a two-point conversion for Somerville. The 5-foot-11, 195-pound Ciempola started at receiver last season as a sophomore on a team with 18 seniors. This fall, he’s added linebacker to his starting duties. 

While he’s more of an inside receiver, Vanderbeek said he has great hands and has enough speed to go deep. Witness his 62-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter from quarterback Ryan Kovacs, who missed the last game with an injury. Ciempola ran about 30 yards after the catch for the score, making people miss a couple times.

“He’s a great student,” Vanderbeek said. “He works very, very hard in the offseason. He’s one of those kids that if you just tell him what you need him to do to help the team, he’ll just do it no questions asked.”

Ciempola has some football DNA. His younger brother, Timothy, is a sophomore on the team. Last season, his older brother, Chris, was a senior receiver and the Mid-State 38 Mountain Division’s first-team punter. 

His sporting family extends to his teammates, which hope to make a run in the playoffs.

“We all love each other,” he said. “We’re all brothers. We do a lot of bonding stuff and it’s just really fun to play with them.”