The St. Vincent football team may be rounding into form.
After starting the season with two straight losses, the Indians are now on a winning streak. St. Vincent performed well in all facets of the game on way to a 40-0 win over Herculaneum on Friday.
St. Vincent coach Tim Schumer feels like his team is starting to find an identity and playing better football.
“We’ve had two good weeks in a row and doing good things on both sides of the ball,” he said. “I definitely like the direction we are headed in.”
While the offense did put up plenty of points in the victory, it was the St. Vincent defense that set the tone in the game. The Blackcats were held to 45 yards of total offense (37 rushing) in the game, and completed a single pass. Senior linebacker Drake Robinson returned a fumble for a touchdown and John Schwartz had two interceptions.
Herculaneum’s offense has struggled so far this year scoring 20 points in four games and has been shut out the last two weeks.
“The defense was flying around all night and really did a good job of swarming to the ball and executing on that side of the ball,” Schumer said.
The offense did its thing as well, as Christian Schaaf completed 22 of 29 passes for 280 yards with four touchdowns and one interception. He also ran for another. Schwartz caught two of the scores, while Jacob Schremp and Cruz Reitzel caught touchdowns.
“We moved the ball well, but had some issues with penalties, and that’s all fixable things,” Schumer said. “Herculaneum is tough defense and it was good to see us go out and execute and move the ball like we did.”
Schumer said that seven different players caught at least one pass and eight players had one carry.
“We want to be able to spread the ball to all our different athletes and see what they could with it,” Schumer said.
The victory also puts the Indians at 2-0 in the I-55 Conference.
“That’s always the first goal of our season,” Schumer said. “Those are the games we know about every year and if we take care of business with those, it will put us in a good position once we have to start thinking about districts. We still have tough opponents left on the schedule, so there’s a lot to be seen when it comes to who will win the conference.”
St. Vincent (2-2) will take on Valle Catholic (3-1) on Friday at 7 p.m. The Warriors defeated Potosi 63-0 last Friday and has the Indians’ number in recent years, including a 67-7 victory in last year’s meeting.
“Valle will be a good test for us to see where we are,” Schumer said. “I just want to come out and execute and play our brand of football for four quarters.”
