St. Joseph Christian wins an overtime thriller over Albany

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by Jeremy Benson, GrandRiverConference.com

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St. Joseph Christian Lions came into Friday's game against the Albany Warriors with a 2-game winning streak.  Meanwhile, Albany struggled in losses to two Top Ten teams in Nodaway Valley and King City.  They were looking to right the ship against the Lions.

Albany won the opening toss and elected to receive.  They marched down the field and capped off the drive with a 10-yard Elliot Mercer touchdown.  After a failed conversion, the Warriors led 6-0.  It didn't take long for the Lions to respond.  After a penalty had the Lions backed up at their own 5-yard line, Brayden Hoffman broke through the Albany line and outran the Warriors' defenders for a 75-yard touchdown.  The Lions led 8-6 with 9:12 left in the 1st quarter.

The two teams traded touchdowns again.  Jace Palmer found Will Fish wide open for a 19-yard touchdown reception.  The Lions wasted no time again.  After a long kickoff return, the Lions were in the Warriors' territory.  Hoffman scored his second rushing touchdown on the first play, this time from 33 yards out.  Both conversions failed, and the first quarter would end with St. Joseph Christian up 14-12.

In the second quarter, Hoffman found the end zone for the 3rd time from 17 yards out.  Albany matched it when Mercer dragged Lion defenders and scored from 6 yards.  With successful conversions from both teams, the Lions held a slim 22-20 halftime lead.

The Lions received the ball first in the second half and took advantage when Calvin Wick found the end zone on a 26-yard run.  However, Mercer was not done scoring.  He added touchdown runs of 3 yards and 45 yards to put Albany on top 34-28 after three.

The two teams continued to change leads.  Noah Dudeck scored from 22 on an option pitch from Mason Stewarts.  Mercer then scored his 5th touchdown of the night.  With the Warriors facing 4th and 11, Jace Palmer found Mercer, who ran down the sideline for a 35-yard touchdown reception.  That put the Warriors up 42-36 with 7:40 left.  

The Lions did not panic.  They methodically drove down the field and capped it off when Stewart called his own number from 5 yards.  However, the Warriors stopped St. Joseph Christian on the conversion to leave the score tied at 42 with 2:05 left in the game.  Albany drove down into Lions' territory at the 23, but after a pass interference penalty pushed them back to the 38, Palmer was intercepted by Noah Dudeck on the final play of regulation.

In overtime, Albany won the toss and deferred.  The Lions only needed two plays for Stewart to score from 13 yards. Dudeck was stopped just short of the goal line to keep the score 48-42 in favor of St. Joseph Christian.  Albany looked like they would tie it again when a Mercer TD was nullified by a penalty.  The Lions would seal the victory when Caedmon Carlson picked off a Jace Palmer pass in the end zone.

Lions' coach James Schoonover said after the game, "It was a good win.  It was one of the first ones with me here that we just dug deep and kept fighting.  I'm really pleased with that."  In overtime, Schoonover said, "We wanted to give them a little bit of a look that they haven't seen yet.  Coach (Doug) Fountain's an amazing coach.  It's a chess match every time playing with them.  So we tried to give a little bit different look and put the ball in our athlete's hands."  After the overtime score, he told his players to be aggressive.  "We've got some good guys that can rush.  We know that they had great schemes.  We threw a couple of twists on there, but we wanted to be aggressive."

Albany coach Doug Fountain was complimentary of the Lions.  He said, "That's a good football team.  They play extremely hard." After struggling in their last two games, Fountain was proud of his team and their fight.  "I am extremely proud of our kids.  They showed a lot of resolve, a lot of toughness, a lot of grit.  We were just leading on what we do best, and our kids had a lot of toughness in them."  He added, "We showed a lot of growth tonight, and the chore for us is to continue to grow and show that each week."

St. Joseph Christian is now 3-1 and 2-0 in the GRC West.  They will host North Andrew next week.  Albany is now 1-3 and 0-2 in the GRC West.  They will host Worth County next week.

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