CHSFL predictions, Week 6

By DYLAN BUTLER and JOSEPH STASZEWSKI

Xavier @ Cardinal Spellman - Saturday, October 16th 1:30 p.m.

Butler: Their most difficult game of the season is behind them and the Knights will take their frustrations from last week’s 35-0 pasting out on the winless Pilots of Cardinal Spellman. Spellman has decent size up front, but it will struggle to handle Xavier’s complex single-wing offense. No team in the CHSFL Class AA-A has scored fewer points (47) and given up more (189) than Spellman. That trend continues Saturday in The Bronx.
Pick: Xavier

Staszewski: Losing can get to a team and we will see if that has happened with winless Spellman this week. It’s a game they could be right in with a few big plays, but Xavier isn’t a team that makes too many mistakes. The Knights single-wing offense with allow them to win the time a possession, a key for a team like Spellman which has struggled to score. A heavy diet of Xavier running back Brent Scardapane should get the job done.
Pick: Xavier

CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL LEAGUE of METROPOLITAN NEW YORK

   Player of the Week Nomination

Nominee: Patrick O’Grady                                                                           School: Xavier High School

Other Sports & Honors
Patrick is a three season athlete at Xavier. In his Freshman and Sophomore years, Patrick was a captain and starter on Xavier’s Freshman and JV Basketball teams and he won the Most Valuable Player award for the JV team. In his Junior year, Patrick came in off the bench as the 6^th man Power Forward on a basketball team that knocked #1 in the state Iona out of the CHSAA playoffs. In his Freshman and Sophomore years, Patrick also started on Xavier’s Freshman and JV Rugby teams and he won the Coaches Award for both of those teams. In his Junior year, Patrick started at 2^nd Row on Xavier’s Varsity Rugby team that won the 2010 High School National Championship in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Xavier Football & Rugby

Alumni News  

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers….” — Henry V (from Shakespeare’s Henry V)

 “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” — from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (1962)

“Your sister ROSE is a PIG!” — 1979 Xavier J.V. CHSFL Champions (Pre-Kickoff) Team Cheer

 A Bronx Tale....

 The Knights Rise Up

Against Spellman, 50-19

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

— Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a.k.a.  Mark Twain (in 1897, after his obituary was published in The New York Observer.)  

The Team Formerly Known as the Kaydets… and then the Bruins… served notice to the rest of the Catholic High School Football League that they intend to stick around and make a season of it when they pounded the Pilots of Cardinal Spellman into their new football field’s state-of-the-art turf Saturday afternoon.

If football followed the rugby tradition of naming a “Man of the Match”, Xavier head coach Chris Stevens would most likely have awarded Saturday’s honors to junior running back Brent Scardapane.  In a very credible impersonation of big brother Craig, a charter member of Coach Stevens’s famous Four Horsemen of 2007 who now plays football for Stone Hill College, Brent rushed for 194 yards and three touchdowns, scored on a two-point conversion and kicked two PATs.  He also punted out of Xavier’s single-wing formation three times for 113 yards, with his best effort traveling 52 yards, and kicked off four times for a total of 165 yards.  (Brent also threw two passes but completed neither.  C’mon, Brent, ye slacker, ye!)

With Xavier’s Junior Varsity receiving an unexpected day off after Spellman’s undermanned JV elected not to play, Coach Stevens and his staff decided to have a look at three of the sophomores responsible for the Junior Knights’ 4-1 record.  One, running back Luis Carpio (6’ 0”, 207), carried the mail eight times for 53 yards, two touchdowns and a two-pointer.  (The other two neophytes were free safety Ryan Kilgallen and 5’ 11”, 230-pound offensive tackle Ricky Comis.  Ryan and Ricky also play rugby for Xavier, while Luis spends springtime at 16^th Street playing America ’s Pastime.  Welcome to the jungle, lads!) 

Other offensive standouts for the Knights against Spellman were senior Pat O’Grady, who caught two passes for 104 yards, including a 53-yard touchdown, and senior running back Nick Byrne, who rushed for a T.D. of his own.  (The New York Post account of the game incorrectly reported that this was a 3-yard pass.)  Junior running back Danny Donohue also added a two-pointer to the day’s tally.

Over on special teams, junior Matt Cilmi returned all four Spellman kicks, taking it to the Pilots for 107 yards.  Classmate Charles Guiraud, who had four carries for 36 yards, kicked off four times for the Knights, moving The Team Formerly Known as the Falcons back a total of 190 yards.

Over on defense, senior linebacker Tom Boule had an interception for the 16^th Street Kids.

With Saturday’s win, Stevens’ Gridironmen move into third place in the CHSFL’s 8-team AA-A Division and improve their chances of gaining a slot in November’s AA Division playoffs.  Next up for the Knights:  Staten Island ’s St. Peter’s High School at Aviator Field this Saturday night (October 23^rd) at 8:00 PM.  This will be the Xavier’s last regular-season home game this fall.

For more on the Cardinal Spellman game— including newspaper articles, game stats and great action photos by Megan Stevens, Xavier’s new official combat photographer— visit

http://departments.xavierhs.org/athletics/football/2010webpage/spellman/spellman.htm, where you can obtain the same for every football game all the way back through 2005 simply by going to the Xavier Varsity schedule and clicking on the game score.

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Fighting Frosh Bring Down Another Giant  

Xavier’s undefeated Freshman team demolished the Vikings of St. Joseph’s by-the-Sea 40-0 on Saturday.  Here is head coach John Kelly’s dispatch from the front:

A highlight of the game was a goal-line stand by our ferocious Dragon Defense (a.k.a. our scout "D") late in the fourth quarter.  In addition, our Knights Offense (a.k.a. scout "O") put together a 60-yard drive resulting in 8 points.

Dennis Barnes had a big day receiving and rushing, scoring one TD and coming up just short on a Hail Mary right before halftime.  Tre Solomon was outstanding once again on both sides of the ball.  John Strehle was great putting together two drives with under two minutes left in the first half, resulting in one TD.

Defense and special teams play led by Robert Iremescu was outstanding.  Strehle's old Hurricane teammate Kevin Crockett had two big receptions that led to two TD's.  A.J. Stamoulis has been exceptional at center and Joe Cutrone anchors a stellar offensive line.     

Remember these names, folks.  You’ll be hearing them a lot— perhaps a lot sooner than you might think.

With this win, Kelly’s Heroes improve their record to 5-0 and solidify their hold on first place in the CHSFL’s City Division, where they lead Iona Prep by half a game.  This is the third time in four weeks that the Fighting Frosh have defeated an AAA Division team.

The kids are getting it done on both sides of the ball too, outscoring their opponents 176 to 47 over those five games.  Next up:  yet another AAA Division school, Mount St. Michael at Marine Park ( Brooklyn ) this Saturday morning (October 23^rd).  Kickoff will be at High Noon.  (That’s 1200 hours— 1700 GMT.  Look that up in your Bowditch, Ex-Midshipman Tweedy!)

The Xavier Junior Varsity will also be at Marine Park this Saturday morning— the only time this season that the JV and Frosh will be playing at the same venue on the same day.  Coach Rod Walker’s lads will be playing Fordham Prep at 10:00 AM.  The Xavier Football Futures Doubleheader will be an excellent opportunity to check out the 16^th Street Kids of Tomorrow.

You will also have an unprecedented opportunity to see Xavier’s newest gridiron warriors in action when Coach Kelly (father of Famous Seamus and Seamus’s Better Brother Sean) leads his young hoodlums against Cardinal Hayes on Friday night, October 29^th, and the ancient enemy, Fordham Prep, on Friday night, November 5^th.  Both games will be played under the lights at Aviator Field and will kick off at 7:00 PM.  There are no playoff games at the freshman level, so these will be your only remaining chances this season to see some of the more destructive children to be left on our doorstep at 16^th Street in recent years.      

Stand by…
Tom O’Hara ‘69