St. Vincent coach Tim Schumer had plenty of reason to smile after Friday’s game against visiting Hayti.
The Indians, fresh off a disappointing loss to Herculaneum, were looking to rebound and regain some sense of direction. They found it — mostly — getting off to fast start and defeating Hayti 42- 14 and improving to 2-3 on the season.
“We wanted to emphasize starting fast,” Schumer said, “so we came out, got the first stop, and then we’re able to go score and kind of play from ahead for the first time this year. I don’t think we’ve led in a game until tonight because even though we won the Perryville game, we didn’t lead until it was 0:00 on the scoreboard. It was a big emphasis on starting fast and I felt we did a good job.”
The Indians opened the scoring in the first quarter, taking a 7-0 lead on 30-yard pass from senior quarterback Wyatt Winkler to junior receiver Case Huber. In the second quarter, Winkler found senior Kale Meyer on a 57-yard touchdown pass and then senior Jack Seabaugh ran in a third touchdown from 4 yards out to make it 20-0 after a failed kick.
Schumer said it was far from easy to make things happen.
“Hayti does a lot of things that make it tough,” Schumer said. “They stack the box, they bring a lot of pressure. So we just tried to establish a run game and then try to find plays that hit on the outside and we were able to hit some big plays in the passing game on top of that.”
Hayti (2-3) had a few surprises up their sleeves as well, capitalizing on a long kickoff return to set up on St. Vincent’s 20-yard line with just over 3 minutes left in the half. Three plays later, quarterback JC Ford completed an 8-yard scoring pass to put Hayti on the board. A successful conversion run made the score 20-8 with 2:20 left in the half.
The Indians made a decent effort to pad their lead before the break, with Max Wheeler pulling in a 27-yard pass that left St. Vincent on the 20-yard line with every intention of scoring again. Hayti had other ideas, picking off Winkler to end the drive and the half.
“The big emphasis this week is that we wanted to keep them contained on the edges and not let them get behind us,” Schumer said. “We were going to give up some underneath stuff just to try to force them to keep going and kind of dink and dunk down the field, but try not to give any too many big plays because they’re very explosive. I felt like we did a really good job on that tonight for the most part.”
Hayti opened the second half with the ball, hoping to make something happen. Instead, Carson House picked off a pass, setting the Indians up on the Hayti 43. A three-play drive capped by Wheeler’s 45-yard touchdown catch and a two-point conversion gave St. Vincent a 28-8 lead.
Hayti answered with a 10-play scoring drive capped by a 30-yard touchdown pass from Ford. The Indians broke up the conversion pass, leaving the score 28-14 with 4:19 left in the third.
Meyer scored again in the third, this time on a 31-yard pass to make it 35-14 and cap a 9-play, 3-minute drive.
Meyer added two more interceptions in the fourth quarter, including one in the end zone, and the Indians put a lid on the game with Wheeler’s third touchdown catch of the night, this time a 27-yarder that left him spinning, slipping, and sliding through a host of Hayti defenders to make it 42-14 with just under six minutes left in the game.
Hayti wasn’t ready to give up. Another long kickoff return left them situated on the St. Vincent 31 with plenty of time on the clock and nothing but the Indians’ defense in their way. The Indians held Hayti to one first down in the series, which ended with House sacking the quarterback on fourth down at the Indians’ 13.
“[Our defense] made big stops and kept them out of the end zone,” Schumer said. “That’s the bend but don’t break. That’s what they did tonight. Kale Meyer had a huge night for us. He missed the last couple of games due to injury. He came back tonight and let everybody know that he’s back. Gus Unterreiner, our other corner, did a great job all night in his matchups, staying on his receiver and not giving up any big plays. Those two guys really, kind of held things on the back end and let those guys on the inside kind of do the dirty work.”
St. Vincent’s defense held Hayti to 273 offensive yards on 77 snaps, while the Indians’ offense scored 42 points in 53 plays and 267 yards, led by Winkler, who completed 10 of 20 passes for 252 yards and 5 of the Indians’ 6 touchdowns.
Up next for St. Vincent is a road matchup with Bayless (1-4), which is coming off a 50-20 loss to Jefferson. The Bronchos also lost 37-8 to Perryville in Week 4. Kickoff for Friday’s game in St. Louis is set for 6 p.m.
