CHSFL predictions, Week 2
Cardinal Hayes @ Xavier Saturday, September 18 4:00 p.m.
Butler: Despite a season-opening loss to Fordham Prep, I left Coffey Field Sunday night impressed with Cardinal Hayes. The potential is there for an explosive offense, led by quarterback Ryan Camilo and his solid group of receivers. However, I think it’s a bit too early in the season to expect the Cardinals inexperienced defense to be able to handle Xavier’s complex single-wing offense. The Knights bounce back from a bad non-league loss to defeat the Cardinals. Pick: Xavier
Staszewski: This game may be one of the hardest to pick. Cardinal Hayes showed flashes of greatness in a Week 1 loss to Fordham Prep, while Xavier was thrashed by Cardinal O’Hara (Buffalo) on the road. The Cardinals have athletes to make big plays with wide receivers Abraham Ocasio and Jonell Garcia. This one will be tight, but Hayes will make a few more key plays to grab a road win. Pick: Cardinal Hayes
Xavier begins life without Chris Mattina
The star tailback/cornerback was lost for the regular season with a fractured foot
By Ian Begley
NEW YORK -- Sure, New York Jets coach Rex Ryan received some bad news on Tuesday when he lost defensive tackle Kris Jenkins for the season. But Xavier High School football coach Chris Stevens had it worse. He learned on Tuesday that he'd lost his starting running back and cornerback for at least eight weeks. "Forget Kris Jenkins, I lost Darrelle Revis and LaDainian Tomlinson on the same play," Stevens said Tuesday night. "That hurts."
The coach was referring to senior Chris Mattina, his lock-down cornerback and leading running back who had surgery to repair a fractured bone in his foot on Tuesday and will be out for at least the remainder of the regular season. Mattina wasn't just the engine of Xavier's vaunted single-wing attack. He was the key, the gas pedal and the steering wheel, too.
Mattina gained 1,100 all-purpose yards, including 900 on the ground, in 2009. He also routinely disrupted opponents' passing attacks, including in the 2009 Turkey Bowl against Fordham Prep when he came up with a game-ending interception in Xavier's win. But he took a vicious hit from a Cardinal O'Hara lineman on a 4th-and-1 run from the 50-yard line that left him with a gash on his chin and a fracture in his foot in the Knights' season-opening 40-19 loss last Saturday in Buffalo. "Losing your best offensive player and your lock-down corner hurts," Stevens said.
Xavier's opponents, however, would be foolish to count the team out based solely on the Mattina injury. Since Stevens implemented the single-wing attack in 2006, Xavier has gone 30-14. Xavier won the CHSFL 'A' division & playoff title in 2007, the CHSFL 'AA-A' division title in 2008 and has beaten 'AA' power Fordham Prep in three of the past four Turkey Bowls. The Knights have had three straight seasons of seven or more wins, and have scored at least 200 points in all four seasons that they've run the single-wing. In the school's 125-year history of football, the football team has scored 200 or more points just nine times.
Stevens is optimistic that Mattina, also the MVP in the 2010 national high school rugby championship game, can return to the field in eight weeks -- in time for the playoffs and the annual Xavier-Fordham Prep Thanksgiving Day game. In the meantime, Brent Scardapane will take Mattina's place in the Xavier backfield. Stevens was originally counting on Scardapane to take 1/3 of the team's carries. "Now, he'll have to carry the full load," Stevens said.
The coach also had to alter his goal for the 2010 season after Mattina went down. "I would have said at the beginning of the season that our goal is to win the ['AA'] division," Stevens said. "Now, we want to fight to stay in the hunt for the ['AA'] playoffs."
Brit Worgan
Xavier's Brent Scardapane tries to make it past Cardinal Hayes' Tyshawn Higgins.
Xavier marches on without Mattina after Hayes loss
By DYLAN BUTLER
Xavier has never been about one player – it wasn’t the case a few years ago when (Famous) Seamus Kelly was a cult hero before heading off to play rugby at Cal and it remains true today. But Chris Mattina isn’t one player, not when Knights coach Chris Stevens looks at his depth chart. “He was a 1,100-yard rusher last year, he’s a cover corner, he kicks off, he punts, he kick returns, he punt returns,” Stevens said. “We lost a lot more than one guy.” Mattina fractured his foot in a lopsided season-opening loss to Cardinal O’Hara (Buffalo) and had season-ending surgery Tuesday. Four days later, the Knights were on the field again, suffering a 21-14 loss to Cardinal Hayes in both teams' CHSFL Class AA-A opener at Aviator Sports Complex Saturday afternoon.
“We’re not a one-man team,” Xavier quarterback Nick Conte said. “It’s a machine, we work together and everybody has to do 1/11th of their job. And if everyone does their job, this offense will take care of the rest. One guy missing shouldn’t, and it’s not, going to put our season to an end.” Conte connected with Patrick O’Grady for a pair of touchdown passes, a rare foray to the air for a Xavier team that almost exclusively runs in the ball in its old school single wing, while junior Brent Scardapane moved into the role of feature back in Mattina’s absence.
“Each individual has to step up a little bit more,” Scardapane said. “As a team we have to get better. We lost best our player, but now we’ve got to grow up a little.” The key, Stevens said, is to limit mistakes, especially without Mattina. That wasn’t the case Saturday as Cardinal Hayes punished Xavier from the outset, a blown assignment led to Donald Thomas’ 85-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to start the game. “We have to stop making mistakes,” Stevens said. “We controlled the ball pretty well, kept the ball alive. But with the bullets in the gun we’re missing, we have to execute and play mistake-free football.”
Xavier is off to a slow start, but that’s nothing new. Last year, the Knights started the season with back-to-back losses before winning five of their next six. “We’re definitely not dead yet” Conte said. “We’re going to come back hard. Last year we turned our season around and [now] it’s just a matter of who wants to take command and who wants to move forward.”
Brit Worgan
Cardinal Hayes Donald Thomas break free of a tackle.
Brit Worgan
Cardinal Hayes Abraham Ocasio finds pay
dirt during
the Cardinals' 21-14 victory over Xavier.
Big plays outweigh mistakes as Hayes tops Xavier
By ZACH BRAZILLER
As he discussed Cardinal Hayes’ hairy 21-14 victory over Xavier Saturday afternoon, C.J. O’Neil had trouble finding a happy medium. He was pleased, yet concerned. Worried but still happy. Excited, but weary. The Hayes coach likes his club’s talent on both sides of the ball, the various home run threats on offense and his defense’s consistency. But he is still troubled by their immaturity, the inexperienced and youth on his offensive line and the careless mistakes and penalties that turned what could’ve been a laughter into a nail biter. “We did better, but we didn’t do as good as we needed to do,” O’Neil said. “There is a lot of room for growth.” Such is life for O’Neil and the green, although talented, Cardinals (1-1, 1-0 CHSFL AA-A). They nearly upset undefeated rival Fordham Prep in Week 1, were on the verge of blowing out Xavier on Saturday, yet needed a strong last drive to close out the Knights (0-2).
Donald Thomas started the afternoon by taking the opening kick 85 yards to the house. Before the first quarter was over, Abraham Ocasio turned a simple reverse into another score, galloping 68 yards and making several Xavier would-be tacklers miss. Ocasio wasn’t done – he also caught a 20-yard touchdown from quarterback Ryan Camilo with 20 seconds remaining in the half, using his large 6-foot-3 frame to shield Matt Cilmi like a rebounder boxing out in basketball. “You’re gonna see him play some place on Saturdays,” O’Neill said.
The defense stymied Xavier’s vaunted Single Wing attack, playing well for a second straight week. The Knights, who put up 86 points on them two years ago, were stuck on six before a poor snap on a punt set up Nick Conte’s second passing touchdown to Patrick O’Grady, this of 33 yards. “Our kids on our defensive line were pretty physical and that helps a lot,” O’Neill said. “We did a good job of defending them.”
Yet, there were also mistakes, two penalties wiping out touchdowns. In the second quarter, with Hayes holding a commanding 15-0 lead, Camilo scored from 15 yards out on a designed sweep. Yet, holding brought the play back. It was followed by another hold and the possession resulted in a punt. “We’re talented, we just need to execute better,” Ocasio said.
On Hayes’ first drive of the third quarter, it went 62 yards in four plays, all the way to the Xavier 4-yard line. Thomas took it in on 2nd-and-goal from the 4, but holding took more points off the board. On the next play, Camilo overthrew George Dawson and Joseph Wolfer made the interception. The miscues allowed Xavier to hang around, and after Conte’s second scoring strike to O’Grady, just a single touchdown separated the two sides with 3:20 left on the clock. Thomas made sure the Knights didn’t get a crack at forcing overtime by running six times for 29 yards on the final drive, clinching the victory by gaining two yards on 4th-and-inches from the Xavier 35. “It was time to turn on the boosters,” he said. “My favorite thing about football is the clutch moments.” Thomas credited the offensive line, which played well in spurts but also committed the two costly holding penalties.
While there was plenty to applaud, and O’Neil, nor his players, plan on giving back their first victory, it also showed there is much work yet to be done. Furthermore, there is little time left before a showdown against powerhouse Stepinac on Saturday. “We got to be more focused,” Ocasio said. “No mistakes.” O’Neil sees Saturday as a significant challenge, but not the end-all, be-all. He’s more concerned with steady improving for when the games really matter. “Come November, we can be a team that can play some serious football,” he said.
