The St. Vincent Indians and Saxony Lutheran Crusaders met for second round playoff action on Nov. 6 in Perryville. The Indians, fresh off a bye week in the first round, ended the Crusaders playoff run with a 40-10 win.
Saxony received the opening kickoff and scored on their opening drive, taking their only lead of the night on a 31-yard direct snap rushing touchdown from Alan Rudd, after the extra point, the Crusaders led 7-0.
St. Vincent responded to the opening drive touchdown with 21 unanswered points; a 39-yard screen pass touchdown from Hunter Mattingly to Case Huber, a Mattingly quarterback sneak on the goal line following a recovery of a muffed kickoff return, and a Mattingly pass to Jack Emmendorfer for a 21-yard touchdown.
The Crusaders were able to score once more late in the first half on an Andrew Sawyers field goal to make the halftime score 21-10.
The second half was all St. Vincent from the opening kickoff, which was returned by Trence Unterreiner for a touchdown. Two more Indian touchdowns followed in the third quarter, both on passes from Mattingly to Huber, the first for 18 yards and the second for 39 yards. By the end of the third quarter, the Indians led the Crusaders 40-10. That score would hold throughout the fourth quarter, in which the Indians subbed in junior varsity players to get some valuable playoff experience.
St. Vincent head coach Tim Schumer said the key to winning the game was stopping the Rudd led Saxony Lutheran running game, which his defense was able to do after giving up the first drive touchdown.
“[Rudd] is a fantastic player and so you got to make sure that we were keying in on him and a lot of the stuff they were doing,” Schumer said. “It was kind of eye candy trying to get us to look one way and then run the other. So we had to stay on our keys, and he got that first run early but I felt like defensively we tightened down the rest of the first half and then absolutely in the second half to do our job to keep them off the board.”
Saxony Lutheran coach OJ Turner said the tough loss will serve as a lesson for the schools still developing football program, who came into the game off their first ever home playoff victory.
“Momentum never came on our side, we didn’t get any breaks, and when that happens, it becomes a little tougher to win a ballgame,” Turner said. “But I feel like the kids didn’t quit. We continued punching them out and we still had hope that we could still kind of stick in there. I think that is a level of maturity that we’re kind of learning to get a little bit better and better as the year goes. So it’s a process and obviously we’re not happy with the outcome, but we’re very happy with our kids.”
The Indians will host Kelly (8-3) Friday night, in what will be the final home game at St. Vincent this season. Schumer said after the game he believes the Indians have a great chance to move forward in the playoffs as long as they execute on both sides of the ball as they have all season until this point.
“At this point, we’ve kind of formed our identity, and it’s just about going out and playing our brand of football,” he said. “Offensively, we have to execute, and defensively, we’ve got to fly around and make plays. I thought defensively we did that great tonight, and offensively we executed really good at times. I felt like I could have done a better job there late in the first half of getting us in better positions, so that’s on me, but I felt like we executed on both sides of the ball, and got the victory.”
Kickoff for St. Vincent against Kelly will be at 7 p.m. Friday.
