St. Mary's gets badly needed win over De La Salle

By KEITH DUNLAP
Of The Oakland Press

ORCHARD LAKE — An 0-2 start for the first time in nearly two decades, and worst of all, two full weeks to stew over it.

So would anyone like to imagine the emotions around Orchard Lake St. Mary's the past couple of weeks?

“It hasn't been fun around here for two weeks,” St. Mary's head coach George Porritt said.

Given that, it was no wonder the shouts of joy in the St. Mary's locker room could be heard by everyone standing outside, after the Eaglets registered a badly-needed 25-16 homecoming win over the Pilots. The game was the Catholic League Central division opener for both teams.

In fairness to St. Mary's (1-2, 1-0), its poor start had a lot to do with playing two of the best teams, East Grand Rapids and Highland Park.

The Eaglets didn't play last week, so a win over De La Salle (3-1, 0-1) was a must for their hopes of making the state playoffs, particularly with games against Birmingham Brother Rice and Novi Detroit Catholic Central still on the schedule.

“This will help us out, and give us a lot of confidence,” St. Mary's senior Gary Hunter said.

St. Mary's took a 12-3 lead thanks mainly to Hunter, who provided both of his team's touchdowns, even though they didn't come on offense.

After De La Salle took a 3-0 lead with 8:55 left in the first half on a 34-yard field goal by Dominic Brugnoni, Hunter returned the ensuing kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown to give the Eaglets a 6-3 lead. The extra point attempt failed.

Then, in the final minute of the first half, when it appeared as if De La Salle was going to run the clock out, the Pilots tried a pass on second-and-long that proved to be costly.

With 47.4 seconds left in the first half, Hunter picked off a cross-field pass, and returned it 30 yards for a touchdown to put the Eaglets ahead at halftime, 12-3.

“They always do trick plays on us,” Hunter said. “We saw on film they did a lot of trick plays. I read his eyes the rest of the way.”

To De La Salle's credit, it came out on fire in the second half.

The Pilots marched right down the field on the first possession of the third quarter, and scored on a 5-yard touchdown run by Tim Zabawa, to cut the St. Mary's lead to 12-10 with 9:55 left in the third.

De La Salle then took a 16-12 lead with 8:57 remaining in the third on an 8-yard touchdown run by De'Angelo Parris, a score that came two plays after Zabawa picked off a pass that was tipped by a De La Salle defensive lineman, and returned it to the St. Mary's 9.

However, the Eaglets responded with two long scoring drives. The first was a 10-play, 71-yard drive that was capped off by an 18-yard touchdown run from junior Corey Lucas with 3:07 left in the third, and gave the Eaglets a 19-16 lead.

As good as that scoring drive was, it had nothing on the next one produced by St. Mary's.

Taking over at their own 19, following an interception by Lucas on a De La Salle bomb pass that caromed off the helmet of Hunter, St. Mary's went on a 19-play, 81-yard scoring drive that took 7:23 off the clock The long drive ended when Earnest Thomas scored on a 5-yard touchdown run with 6:11 remaining in the game, to give the Eaglets a 25-16 lead.

The drive featured a fourth-and-1 conversion from the St. Mary's 29, a fourth-and-1 conversion from the De La Salle 14 and three other successful conversions on third down.

“That was what we needed,” Porritt said of the drive. “That was St. Mary's football.”

The importance of the drive sure wasn't lost on De La Salle head coach Paul Verska.

“We just couldn't get off of the field,” Verska said. “They had (two) fourth down plays and we just couldn't get off the field.”

St. Mary's senior quarterback — and Penn State commitment Robert Bolden — didn't have his best passing day, but he did run for 89 yards on 13 carries.

De'Angelo Parris ran for 101 yards on 14 carries, with 72 of those yards coming in the second half.

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