by The 62nd annual Holy War didn’t disappoint as St. Ignatius traveled to Lakewood Stadium to take on top ranked rival St. Edward in front of a frenzied crowd at the Madhouse on Madison. It was a sloppy game at times, but St. Edward did more than enough to pull out the 19-14 victory over the Wildcats.
St. Edward quarterback Christian Ramos had an up and down night as he passed for 124 yards on 11 of 21 passing with two interceptions and one touchdown. He did his best damage with his legs, as he rushed for 100 yards on 17 carries, also extending several drives with key third down pickups.
His backfield mate Danny Enovitch put together a nice performance himself against a stout rush defense of St. Ignatius. He went for 77 yards on 16 carries and picked up a lot of tough yards along the way. Enovitch also caught one pass for 4 yards on the evening.
St. Ignatius struggled for any significant offense outside of Marty Lenehan once again. The stud tailback went for 87 yards on 19 carries. He could have had more than that but for whatever reason they went away from him in the third quarter and early parts of the fourth. This was the same stretch that they pulled starting quarterback Pierce Spencer in favor of Patrick Tompkins.
Spencer who was playing for injured starter Joey Pfaff, went 6 of 11 for 100 yards and a touchdown and interception. However, 69 of those 100 yards came on a screen pass that Max Muresan took 68 of the 69 yards. Also, St. Ignatius struggled to move the ball in the first half, so perhaps that was part of the switch to Patrick Tompkins.
The problem for the Wildcats was that Thompkins was not effective as he went 2 of 9 for 9 yards and an interception. They tried using him a wildcat formation at times but that was also not effective as he was held to minus one yard on 6 carries. The Wildcats hope to have Pfaff back by the Xavier game, if not at least back by the playoffs.
After forcing a three and out, the Eagles started their first drive with good field position. However, before the Eagles could punch it in, it was St. Ignatius Wildcat John Mangan picking off Ramos to snuff out the drive. Later in the quarter, St. Edward went for it on a fourth and short at midfield and didn’t get it as the first quarter would end scoreless.
The scoreless first quarter would lead way to a wild second quarter of action. After St. Ignatius missed a 35-yard field goal, the Eagles got the ball back but couldn’t do anything with it. St. Ignatius muffed the punt and gave the ball right back to the Eagles. Moments later it was Ramos hooking up with Rayshawn Manning Jr for a 36-yard touchdown for the games first points. They would miss the extra point however and it was 6-0 Eagles.
Then, less than 15 seconds later, it was St. Edward Eagle Jack Riley picking off Spencer and taking it to the house to make it 12-0 in a blink of an eye. The score remained 12-0 after a failed two-point conversion.
Late in the second quarter it looked as though the Eagles would set up shop to score again after they blocked the St. Ignatius punt and took over at the Wildcat 42. But the Wildcats had other idea’s as it was Griffin Taliak picking off a Ramos pass to give the ball right back to the Wildcats.
The second quarter became even zanier later on as the Eagles appeared to get the ball back up 12-0 when they forced a punt. The problem was that they got a little overzealous and ended up roughing the kicker. This led to the Wildcats scoring on the next play on the 69 yard screen pass to Muresan to make it 12-7 at the half.
Still up 12-7 as they entered the fourth, the Eagles would find the endzone again as Ramos connected with wideout Jackson Miller on a beautiful pass in the corner of the endzone to put the Eagles up 19-7 with 10:59 to go.
The score remained 19-7 until the waning moments of the game, when St. Ignatius blocked a St. Edward punt with 28 seconds to go, and Joe Norris returned it for a touchdown. Just like that, a game that appeared to be over, was suddenly in question as it was 19-14. St. Edward was able to recover the onside kick and win the game.
I’ll say it again, this was a wild game when you look at the big picture. There were four total interceptions, a muffed punt, and two blocked punts. The Wildcats were only down 12-7 in the third quarter and got the ball twice in Eagle territory to start drives and couldn’t do anything with it.
Sometimes in a game, it is the little things that standout when you go back and look at it. St. Ignatius missed two field goals from 35 yards and 53 yards. That didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but had they made both of those, they would have won 20-19.
St. Edward moves to 7-0 with the win, and will now host Rock Creek Christian next Saturday night at the Madhouse. St. Ignatius falls to 4-3 and will travel to Cincinnati to take on Moeller next Saturday as well.
GREAT COVERAGE! THANKS AND CONGRATS ON ALL YOUR HAD WORK!
Jack Riley