The third-seeded St. Vincent Indians (7-3) were looking to make a statement in Friday’s first round of the Class 2, District 1 playoffs, and they did just that, posting a 36-0 shutout victory over the sixth-seeded Kelly Hawks (4-6) on Friday at St. Vincent Stadium in Perryville.
“I felt like the message of the week is that we wanted to continue the way we were playing the last few weeks, starting fast and playing good defense,” said St. Vincent coach Tim Schumer. “We were able to do both of those and play pretty well for most of the night against a pretty tough Kelly team.”
Offensively, the Indians were led by senior quarterback Wyatt Winkler, senior receiver Max Wheeler and senior running back Jack Seabaugh.
Winkler completed 10-of-17 passing attempts for 263 yards with a touchdown and an interception, and Wheeler caught 5 passes for 181 yards and a touchdown. Seabaugh, who only accounted for 58 of the Indians’ 344 offensive yards, found the endzone 40 percent of the time, scoring 4 touchdowns — all in the first half — on just 10 carries, including one for 41 yards.
“On the first one, we had two big pass plays and then [Seabaugh] punched in from about two yards out,” Schumer said. “And then our second score of the night was the first play of the drive. [Seabaugh] had a 41-yard touchdown run. He made it right up the middle, found the hole and took off. He got to the second level and just outran everybody. That was awesome to see. The rest of the scoring in the first half was, we would just get it down inside the 5-yard line and he punched it in from there.”
Senior Carson House had 2 carries for 20 yards, senior Kale Meyer had 3 catches for 43 yards, senior Kellan Pitts had 1 for 22, and senior Andrew Hotop had 1 for 17.
While Seabaugh did all his scoring in the first half, Wheeler saved his for the second half, scoring on a 75-yard pass.
“We ran a screenplay and they blitzed,” Schumer said, “so we had most of our linemen out in front of him, just escorting him down the field.”
In addition to a strong offensive performance, Schumer said that it certainly didn’t hurt that his defense was able to pitch a shutout.
“I felt like [Kelly] had some really good players,” Schumer said. “They had some real big linemen that we had to be ready for. I thought we came out strong offensively. We had two big pass plays that got us right down to the goal line, and then we were able to punch it in. We kind of started the scoring from there. We started fast and kind of put them in a situation where they had to probably pass more than they wanted to. Our defense played well all night.”
House finished with 17 tackles, a pass breakup and a forced fumble; junior Adam Brickhaus had 7 total tackles, 2 pass breakups and a fumble recovery; and Wheeler broke up 1 pass and intercepted another. Seabaugh had 12 total tackles, senior Derek Garza had 10, and freshman Quinton Whistler had 7 total tackles, 2 for loss, and 1 pass breakup.
Up next for the Indians, who secured their fourth consecutive Quad County Conference title in Week 9 with a 41-8 victory over the Jefferson Bluejays on Senior Night, will be a second-round matchup with second-seeded St. Pius X (5-5) in Festus. The Indians are 7-7 against St. Pius since 2010.
“We used to be in conference with them every year, so we’ve played them year in, year out for all but the last two years,” Schumer said. “They’re pretty familiar opponents. It’s been back and forth with our matchup, and we went back and forth playing each other for Homecoming. It seemed like every time we would go up there, it’d be their homecoming, and when they would come down here, it would be ours.”
Kickoff for this latest matchup on Friday is scheduled for 7 p.m.
