CHSFL predictions, Week 3

By DYLAN BUTLER and JOSEPH STASZEWSKI

Xavier @ St. John the Baptist (Saturday, 1:30 p.m.)

Butler: Last year this was a breathtaking, high-scoring game won by Baptist, 49-44. But Xavier is without Seamus Kelly and an experienced offensive line and the Cougars no longer have Thomas Beverly. But Baptist has plenty of offensive weapons and they’ll put them on full display at home Saturday. Pick: St. John the Baptist

Staszewski: The Knights offense hasn’t shown much life the last two weeks as the team is still adjusting to life after Kelly. St. John the Baptist ran all over St. Peter’s last week, but showed they were susceptible to a good running game. I think Xavier will put up some points in this one, but the Cougars big play ability on both sides of the ball is what has me giving them the edge in this one. Pick: St. John the Baptist

CHSFL roundup: Xavier stuns St. John the Baptist, 26-0

By DYLAN BUTLER

Sitting in his office, Chris Stevens didn’t like what he saw from St. John the Baptist.

“I saw them on film against St. Peter’s and I was afraid,” the Xavier coach said.

That’s why Stevens was as surprised as anyone that the Knights, which opened the season with back-to-back losses to Xaverian and Archbishop Stepinac, came away with a 26-0 victory against the Cougars in West Islip. L.I. on Saturday afternoon.

“It was amazing how things change in a week,” Stevens said. “The first two weeks we were very young.”

Stevens said he saw a difference in his team in Friday’s practice inside the gym at Xavier.

I told them after practice that we took a big step forward,” Stevens said. “We had some seasoning on the offensive line, but I didn’t expect a result like that.”

On the Knights’ first possession, Chris Mattina (14 carries for 100 yards) scored on an 8-yard run and John Wilson followed with a 56-yard touchdown on a counter. John Gearity added a 1-yard plunge just before halftime for Xavier (1-2, 1-1 CHSFL AA-A). John Clark followed with a 5-yard run to cap the scoring for Xavier, which had four players rush for more than 60 yards apiece and had four different players attempt 12 passes, a necessary wrinkle in Stevens’ single-wing offense.

Stevens said he picked up the idea from longtime Menominee (Mich.) coach Ken Hoffer at the Single-Wing Conclave over the summer in Wilkes Barre, Pa.

“He said you have to throw the ball 10 times a game, win or lose,” Stevens said. “We have a young offensive line and we needed to do something to overcome third-and-long situations.”

Xavier meets undefeated Cardinal Hayes Friday night at Maritime College.

“Hopefully we’re growing up,” Stevens said.

“Spread the word around The boys are back in town….”  

 XAVIER  26
BAPTIST     0

No, Jimmy Tierney, that score is not a misprint.  (And yes, Virginia, there is an Amazing Fantastic Gridiron Way Back Machine.) I had just
returned from Saturday’s game in West Islip and was setting out for Waldbaum’s to pick up a loaf of Italian bread for the fair Kathleen from
Cork (a.k.a  She Who Must Be Obeyed) when my cell phone rang.  It was Jim Tierney ’68, retired G-man and current Wall Street sleuth.
Jimmy, who was a standout trackman during his time on 16th Street, was checking out high school football results at nypost.com and wanted
to know if the Xavier-St. John the Baptist score listed there could possibly be accurate.

Jimmy’s skepticism was understandable.  After all, the New York Post and Newsday sportswriters had been unanimous in picking the
Cougars  to notch their fourth straight regular-season victory against an 0-2 Xavier team struggling to adjust in the post-Seamus Kelly era.
With Famous Seamus leading the way, the Xavier offense had averaged an explosive 400 yards rushing and 45 points per game in 2008.
Plagued by turnovers, the Knights had managed to rush for just 391 yards and score 12 points total in their first two games of 2009. 

St. John’s, meanwhile, was coming off a one-sided 35-14 win over St. Peter’s (Staten Island) in which the Cougars had intercepted
St. Peter’s quarterback once, sacked him six times, and forced three fumbles.  As if that weren’t daunting enough, the CHSFL
schedule-maker had anointed Baptist with home team status for the second consecutive year.  (As a reward for losing the regular-season
division title to Xavier two years in a row?)  Cougar Field, all the way out there in Suffolk County  (It’s on Montauk Highway, for crying
out loud.), has never a hospitable venue for the lads from Manhattan.

Including last year’s season-ending defeats at the hands of Holy Trinity in the CHSFL AA Division semi-final playoff game and Fordham
Prep on Thanksgiving Day, Xavier’s losing streak to AAA teams now stood at four games all to.  One more setback and there was a real
danger that the wheels could start to come off, but with their whole season at stake, the Knights couldn’t have chosen a worse place in
which to try to make their stand.  I was on the sidelines for Xavier’s first two games this season, and as I wrote last time out, I saw no signs of
panic or surrender in the 16th Street Kids or their coaches.  Elsewhere however, some of the faithful were beginning to waiver.  Had the
Single Wing’s day at 16th Street come and gone? Was this venerable offense just too one-dimensional for the 21st century?  Had the league’s
defensive coordinators finally caught up with Xavier’s mad gridiron engineer?

Well, boys and girls, to paraphrase Mark Twain:  the reports of Xavier’s demise were greatly exaggerated.  The Knights, their coaches and fans arrived in West Islip on Saturday fully expecting the usual down-to-the-wire brawl with the Cougars, but determined not to go quietly into that good night.  Their backs to the wall, the 16th Street Kids took it to Baptist from the opening whistle and never looked back.  And unlike every other meeting between these fierce rivals in recent years, the outcome of Saturday’s game was never in doubt.  Indeed, were it not for some dopey penalties and backfield ball-handling that was a tad more, um, exciting than called for in the playbook, the score could easily have been 40-0.

The New York Post’s account of the game carries the headline “Xavier Stuns St. John the Baptist”.  That is not hyperbole.  Watching from the sideline as the Cougars reeled under the Xavier assault, the word “shellshocked” came to mind.  And it wasn’t just the St. John’s players.  By scoring twice in the opening minutes, the Knights took the usually rabid hometown fans out of the game almost immediately and not even the Cougars’ supporting cast of thousands— the band, the cheerleaders, the kickline, etc.— could bring them back.  Even the P.A. announcer sounded so subdued that I considered heading up to the booth at halftime to cheer him up, maybe buy him some Cracker Jacks.  (A big shout-out here to the Xavier fans who, finding themselves forced to sit on St. John’s side of the field by the lack of seating behind the Knights, proceeded to drown out the numerically superior Cougar fans. Trust me, folks— the kids noticed.)   

After some initial sputtering, burps, bangs and hiccups, The Amazing Fantastic Gridiron Way Back Machine appears to have been successfully retooled and recalibrated.  It was 2007 all over again on Saturday as Xavier’s backfield Gang of Four combined for a season-high 293 yards rushing and four touchdowns.  Junior running back Chris Mattina, who led the way with 100 yards on 14 carries, scored on the Knights’ very first possession and was soon followed onto Holy Ground and the scoreboard by his associates Mad Jack Wilson (60 yards on seven carries), John Gearity (68 yards on nine carries) and Jonny “The Virginian” Clark (65 yards on 11 carries).

“I think Chris Mattina was the game’s major standout on offense,” Coach Stevens told XFRAN later.  “He had 100 yards rushing, completed a pass, and every football we asked him to kick deep, he kicked 50-plus yards.  It was a breakout game for him.”

But that was not the most interesting aspect of the Xavier attack.  Chris Stevens had heard the criticism: that his Way Back Machine had become too predictable, that it might be obsolete, and that, in any case, it was too earthbound.  When I arrived on the sideline Saturday afternoon, the game was already a few minutes old.  Chris was pacing the sidelines as usual and when he spotted me, he turned to face me and, with a smile just this side of evil, remarked simply, “You know, one of my teams has the Xavier season passing record, too— 1,659 yards.”  And without another word, he turned around and went back to coaching his team.

I soon realized that this was just Chris’s way of announcing that Airborne Associates of 16^th Street had officially opened for business in the skies over Cougar Field.  In 2008, the Knights threw exactly 23 passes in 11 games (completing 13!).  On Saturday, the aerial partnership of Gearity, Ruta, Mattina & Clark launched no less than a dozen footballs into an astonished St. John’s secondary.

John Gearity hit Mad Jack Wilson for 32 yards and found Weehawken’s own Joe Corrado for 15 more.  Corrado caught his second pass of the day, this one a 12-yarder, courtesy of Steve Ruta, who also completed another aerial to Tom Boule that was good for the two-point conversion following the Virginian’s touchdown.  Mad Jack snagged his second reception of the day in the form of a six-yard pass from Chris Mattina.  (Confused yet?  Now imagine that you are a defensive coordinator trying to prepare for Xavier.) 

Those of you who are keeping count will note that Airborne Associates’ completion rate was less than impressive, but as Coach Stevens would later tell XFRAN, “Necessity is the mother of invention and even though I would like to have completed more than five of 12 passes, we completed some at very crucial times and the threat of the pass overall really helped to open things up for the running game.  People will see more of the same going forward— I want to throw at least ten times a game.  Even though we did not complete seven of those passes, most of our receivers were open, we just didn't connect.  But there were also no interceptions.  We’ll get better.”

Coach Stevens also had praise for his inexperienced and undersized offensive linemen, whose inexperience had been a key factor behind Xavier’s underwhelming performance in weeks one and two.  “The O Line has begun to cut their teeth,” he told XFRAN.  “Unfortunately, the last two weeks we played on Friday night and had to forego our Friday afternoon blocking-adjustment marathon in the gym.  This Friday, we were in the gym and I really saw them grow up and start to make blocking adjustments on the fly.  That shows me that they are beginning to understand the offense.  I told them before the game that, win, lose or draw, it was a watershed moment in our growing process and that we could now begin to improve.  Yes, we still have significant room for improvement on offense, but we are moving in the right direction.”

That’s good news.  Now, just what the heck happened on the other side of the ball Saturday afternoon?

The hallmark of the Xavier-St. John’s series over the past two years has been the fireworks on offense— by both teams.  The Cougars could not solve the Single Wing, but neither could the Knights contain a Baptist attack that was equally potent on the ground and in the air.  Xavier lost both regular-season meetings, 41-34 in 2007 and 49-44 last year.  Xavier’s sole victory, fortunately, was the game that counted most— the 2007 CHSFL A Division Championship.  Losing 27-14 with just seven minutes left, the Blue Knights of the Hudson scored 31 points to win a game that will be part of Xavier football lore forever. 

The question going into Saturday’s fracas was whether new Xavier defensive coordinator Kevin Kelly could stop the Baptist offensive juggernaut that had rolled over St. Peter’s six days earlier.  The Cougars had scored 28 unanswered points in the first  half before going on to maul the Eagles 35-14.  Running backs Berelle Hunter and Vinny Iacono had been unstoppable.  Hunter rushed for 182 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries, while Iacono ran for 138 yards and one score on 11 carries.  Overhead, Quarterback Sean Belsky threw just six passes but completed four of them for 115 yards and two touchdowns, both to Michael Gangitano, as the Long Island school racked up 447 total yards on offense.

The question for Coach Kelly and his associate, Xavier’s longtime Dalai Lama of Defense Bill Paszke, was:  which squad was going to show up in West Islip on Saturday afternoon— the gridironmen who had held Stepinac to a solitary field goal over three quarters the weekend before?  Or the weary warriors who had finally knuckled under and surrendered 19 points, and the game, to the Crusaders in the final period?

When former Special Agent Tierney called me on Saturday evening, he admonished me to be sure to give the Xavier defense its due in this article.  That won’t be necessary.  Here again is Coach Stevens:  “Coach Kelly and the defense were the real story of the game.  He has been a tremendous addition, especially with film breakdown and consistent defensive schemes.  I was very happy with the play of the D line and the inside backers who really shut Baptist down:  Pat Coleman, Sean McKelvin, Mike Potter, proud son of Weehawken Joe Corrado, Sean Kelly and Pat Nilsen.  Luna Mishoe also came in and made a very good impression.  He will play more going forward.”

(Note:  Coach Stevens may not have actually referred to Joe Corrado as a “proud son of Weehawken ”.  I’m double-checking my notes.  Also, Garden City’s Luna Mishoe, the only Long Islander on the Xavier roster, stands just 5’ 4” but weighs 215.  A solid 215.) 

You had to be standing on the sideline Saturday to truly appreciate the ferocity with which Kelly’s Heroes went about their business.  The clash of the pads and helmets warmed the cockles of this old coach’s heart, I can tell you.  Aggressive pursuit was the order of the day as the Xavier gridironmen swarmed the Cougar ball carriers at every opportunity.  At times, they looked like a pack of wolves fighting over a lamb chop, with latecomers frantically searching for an open patch of red jersey to hit in a sea of blue and maroon.

All of Baptist’s big guns were silenced. The backfield tandem of Vinny Iacono and Derrelle Hunter, who had combined for 320 of Baptist's 332 rushing yards against St. Peter’s, could only manage 79 yards between them on 34 carries— for an average of 2.3 yards per carry.  Cougar quarterback Sean Belsky completed just three of nine passes for a total of 19 yards.

In the stands on Saturday was none other than Xavier Football and Boston Rugby great Billy Stevens ’67. Billy, who played on the legendary 1966 Xavier football squad before embarking on his three-decade rugby career at Holy Cross, remarked to me after the game that the Xavier defenders’ rugby pedigree was evident in their open-field tackling, which, he noted, was superb.  Coming from Mr. Stevens, that’s high praise indeed, kids.  Billy, who played top-level club rugby well into his forties, was a forward on the great Boston RFC sides of the 1970s and 1980s.  Billy’s teams played— and often beat— some of the great British, Irish and French clubs of that era before professional rugby.

Returning to rugby’s American descendant, that disastrous Stepinac fourth quarter aside, Kelly’s Heroes have now limited the opposition to one field goal in the last seven quarters.  To put it in a more interesting perspective, last year at this time, the 3-0 Knights had given up 58 points.  This year’s 1-2 squad has yielded just 50 points— less than 17 points a game on average.

Moreover, the shutout of St. John the Baptist was the first by Xavier in three years— since the Knights crushed Moore Catholic 41-0 back on October 28, 2006.  Not even the great Xavier teams of 2007 and 2008 ever succeeded in keeping an opponent off the scoreboard.  That this embattled squad was able to completely dominate the potent Baptist offense that has been Xavier’s greatest nemesis in recent seasons— and do it at Cougar Field— was truly a memorable moment.  If you weren’t in West Islip on Saturday afternoon, you missed something special.

Stand by....

Tom O'Hara '69