DESOTO — The St. Vincent Indian’s started their football season with a win on the road at DeSoto. The Indians outlasted the Dragons in a low scoring game, winning 14-7.
The Indians scored first, on an eight yard run in the first quarter by junior Layton Cheaney. The Dragons were able to tie the game up in the closing minutes of the second quarter with a short rush of their own, a four yard run with four minutes to go to the half.
“We scored on our third or fourth play of the game,” St. Vincent head coach Tim Schumer said. “We came out and executed on defense and then got the ball and executed an offense and took an early lead and then kind of went back and forth there for a while.”
Both offenses were held scoreless in the third quarter, and then St. Vincent was able to break the tie in the fourth quarter. The go-ahead touchdown came on a 27-yard pass from Andrew Schumer to Case Huber.
Schumer said he was happy with how his defense held strong late to maintain the small lead.
“We came out in the second half and I thought we moved the ball well,” Schumer said. “We got into that same kind of back and forth game with them where both offenses took turns moving the ball, but defense came out at the end, and then started the fourth quarter we threw a touchdown pass to Case Huber and then held on and kind of put ourselves in some bad situations, but defense held strong to finish the game.”
The game came to a halt late in the fourth quarter after a scary injury, a helmet to helmet collision involving St. Vincent sophomore Kaden Meyer, who was knocked out and transferred by ambulance to a hospital for further evaluation. Schumer said Meyer has made a full recovery and has been cleared from the hospital, but is still going through some precautions before returning to the field.
The Indians turn their sights to their home opener this Friday night, where they will be hosting St. Genevieve. Schumer said the team will spend the week improving on the week one growing pains that most teams experience, even in a win.
“I think you get your first game jitters out of the way and your first game under your belt where you go look at the film and kind of get a full scope of everything and go in and practice and make those changes,” he said. “So I want to say we got to focus on ourselves a lot still, just kind of fix some of those small things that showed up in the DeSoto game while also getting ready for another tough opponent in St. Genevieve.”
Kickoff from St. Vincent is scheduled for 7 p.m.
