Saturday, September 19, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Patrick O'Connor racing for the end zone and the game winning score with 35 seconds left in the fourth quarter as St. Joseph erased a 17-point deficit and knocked off St. Peter's Prep 21-17 on Saturday afternoon.

MONTVALE -- Patrick O'Connor was not the first option. With time winding down and St. Joseph Regional trailing St. Peter's Prep, the No. 2 team in the NorthJerseySports.com rankings and No. 1 in the state according to the Star Ledger, O'Connor was to run a support route to try to draw some attention away from the real target, who was running up the sideline. But when SJR quarterback Christopher Andrews needed to unload the ball in the face of pressure and with the deep throw taken away, O'Connor became the man and then became 'The Man.’

O’Connor dragged across the middle and found himself in the view of Andrews at just the right time. With a defender on his hip, O’Connor hauled in the pass, got to the sideline and then cut it up with the end zone in view. Running back Presley Beauvais was downfield and provided a block that got O’Connor inside the 10 and the senior dove across the goal line near the pylon for the deciding touchdown in St. Joseph’s come-from-behind 21-17 win and the season’s first real eye-opening upset.

“The play was X-Dig, which is supposed to go to the wide receiver [Christian Stapleton on a deep in route]. I was the hot read on the play and if the quarterback got in trouble he was going to dump it off to me,” said O’Connor, the senior tight end. “I had a good feeling that I was going to get the ball and when I caught it I saw I had some daylight. I saw Presley Beauvais blocking down there and I saw the safety behind him. I knew it was going to be neck and neck so I dove."

Joe Vesey's 5-yard TD catch put St. Peter's ahead just 1:47 into the game.

When he got up, St. Joseph had its first lead of the game. When Jason Checke made the extra point the Green Knights were up by four points with 35 seconds left. When St. Peter’s Prep threw an incomplete pass from the St. Joseph 32-yard line on the final play of the game, SJR, which was wondering just how good it would be this season after heavy graduation losses, now has others wondering if it just might be the best team in the state.

“Until somebody knocks off Don Bosco [Prep] how could anybody else be considered No. 1 in New Jersey?” was the answer of SJR head coach Tony Karcich, who was more than willing to leave the speculation to everyone else. “I am not really worried about the rankings. For us we just needed to get win No. 2 and now we can go after No. 3 against Paramus Catholic next week.”

Win No. 2 did not look like it was going to come on Saturday through the first quarter-and-a-half. St. Peter’s took the opening kickoff and marched 80 yards in just 1:47 for the game’s initial score, a 5-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Brandon Napolean to senior wide out Joe Vesey. Kevin Cosgrove added the extra point and then nailed a 41-yard field goal that would have been good from 55 yards on St. Peter’s next possession to give the Marauders a 10-0 lead with 5:42 left in the opening quarter. The lead ballooned to 17-0 when Savon Huggins scored on a 22-yard run with 4:56 left in the first half.

Senior quarterback Christopher Andrews completed three passes on SJR's game-winning crive.

While it looked like St. Peter’s was on its way to a blowout, it turned out to be quite different. Those were the last points the Marauders would score and St. Joseph began to take back momentum on its next drive. A 38-yard hook-up between Andrews, the left handed senior quarterback and a first year starter, and Stapleton was St. Joseph’s first big offensive play of the game and Beauvais’ four-yard score with 31 seconds left in the first half got SJR on the board and to within 17-6 at the half.

That drive was the one that got the Green Knights back into the game, but it was their first possession of the second half that helped them take it over. Cosgrove’s kickoff to start the second half reached the end zone for a touchback before SJR moved from its own 20 to the Prep 5. It took exactly eight minutes for the Knights to get that far and they came away empty when a field goal try went wide right, but both coaches pointed to that march as the game-turner when all was said and done.

“I think that drive was big. We wanted to come out, get a three-and-out then get the football and do something with it. Obviously we didn’t do that,” said St. Peter’s Prep head coach Rich Hansen. “They were able to come out and establish themselves, they took some time off the clock and then we came out on offense and went three-and-out and put our defense right back on the field. We just couldn’t get anything going in the second half after that.”

From the St, Joseph point of view, the fact that it went 75 yards in eight minutes with nothing to show for it was another test of its mettle and another test it passed.

Savon Huggins second quarter TD put St. Peter's ahead 17-0.

“I think our kids character really stepped up after being denied and getting zero points. On a drive like that a lot of teams just might have said ‘Oh, well. Not today,’ but our kids refused to put their heads down,” said Karcich. “Today we just kept working and working and good things happened.”

St. Joseph made a lot of good things happen on the defensive side of the ball. St. Peter’s first four possessions of the second half all ended with punts and the only one that didn’t was its desperation final drive that came to an end when the clock struck 0:00.

St. Joseph was still trailing by 11 points entering the fourth quarter until Andrews got hot. He hit O’Connor for a 20-yard gain to start the Knights’ first drive of the final quarter and then hit Ricky Jeune up the left sideline for a 32-yard gain that gave SJR a first-and-goal from the 5. Three straight runs brought the ball to the 1 and, on fourth-and-goal, Beauvais swept right for the touchdown and then did the same on the two-point conversion try that brought SJR to within 17-14 with 7:24 left in the game.

Beauvais, generously listed at 5-5, 150 pounds, was especially impressive on the 2-point run as he took the ball wide in a pressure situation but didn’t hurry, letting the defense pursue then cutting hard on his left foot and squaring his pads to the goal line as soon as a hole opened.

“I was amazed that the outside was so wide open. I saw that from the beginning and I was setting it up and I just ran outside,” said Beauvais. “We knew we could move the ball, we just had to get some stops. You have to give the credit to our defense because they got stops the whole second half.”

Mark Cieslak converted a key fourth down to keep St. Joseph's final drive alive.

St. Joseph had everything but the lead when it took over on its own 44-yard line with 2:21 to play and the Knights converted two fourth downs on the way to the winning score. The first one came on a fourth-and-9 when Andrews found Dane McDermott over the middle for a 14-yard gain and the second came on a fourth-and-4 from the Prep 35. Junior Mark Cieslak is SJR’s starting middle linebacker, but he is also the Knights’ back up fullback and his second carry of the game came in the stickiest of situations. He got the four yards plus one inch to get the first down by the nose of the football after a measurement and kept the drive alive.

Two plays later, Andrews found O’Connor, O’Connor found the end zone and St. Joseph found itself at 2-0 on the season.

“This is the best feeling ever,” said O’Connor. “But next week we have Paramus Catholic and they gave us a little bit of a problem last year. We can’t let down, we have to keep this thing going.”

For St. Peter’s the disappointment was palpable and the repercussions of losing the No. 1 ranking and the game are yet to be determined.

“We didn’t have a great week of practice, the intensity level was not what it should have been and it was a poor week of preparation on our part,” said Hansen, whose team will host North Bergen in its HCIAA opener on Friday night at Caven Point. “This could be a great learning tool or this could crush us.”

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