Big plays lead Crusaders over STA
Andrew Grimm CELEBRATING — Catholic Central players rush to celebrate with Rahim Mitchell, right, after he returned a kickoff for a touchdown in a 47-24 Crusaders win over St. Thomas Aquinas Saturday night at Harding Stadium.
Andrew Grimm LEAPING GRAB — Central’s Rahim Mitchel leaps to make a catch late in the first half. He came down with the catch and scored a 33-yard touchdown on the play.
Andrew Grimm HITTING THE HOLE — Crusaders running back Ryan Holzworth finds some room to run against Aquinas.
Andrew Grimm CUTTING UP FIELD — Central’s Daveon Thorn works the sideline after making a catch Saturday night.
Andrew Grimm QUICK RELEASE — Central QB Matty Jones fires a pass against Aquinas. He threw for four touchdowns in the Crusaders victory.
Andrew Grimm ROOM TO RUN — Central’s Rahim Mitchell races past Aquinas defenders. He led Central with 74 rushing yards.
Andrew Grimm RUNNING THROUGH TACKLES — Central’s Matty Jones runs through an Aquinas arm tackle for extra yards on Saturday.
Andrew Grimm CELEBRATING — Catholic Central players rush to celebrate with Rahim Mitchell, right, after he returned a kickoff for a touchdown in a 47-24 Crusaders win over St. Thomas Aquinas Saturday night at Harding Stadium.
Andrew Grimm LEAPING GRAB — Central’s Rahim Mitchel leaps to make a catch late in the first half. He came down with the catch and scored a 33-yard touchdown on the play.
Andrew Grimm HITTING THE HOLE — Crusaders running back Ryan Holzworth finds some room to run against Aquinas.
Andrew Grimm CUTTING UP FIELD — Central’s Daveon Thorn works the sideline after making a catch Saturday night.
Andrew Grimm QUICK RELEASE — Central QB Matty Jones fires a pass against Aquinas. He threw for four touchdowns in the Crusaders victory.
Andrew Grimm ROOM TO RUN — Central’s Rahim Mitchell races past Aquinas defenders. He led Central with 74 rushing yards.
Andrew Grimm RUNNING THROUGH TACKLES — Central’s Matty Jones runs through an Aquinas arm tackle for extra yards on Saturday.
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STEUBENVILLE -- The youthful Catholic Central football team may still have some learning to do, but they certainly showed some positive movement in the right direction Saturday night.
Playing their first home game since opening night, the Crusaders got some big plays in all three phases of the game to overcome an early deficit and put up their biggest point total of the season for a 47-24 victory over visiting St. Thomas Aquinas.
"Once we calmed down, we played well," Central head coach Greg Bahen said. "We took care of the ball, hit some big plays and ran the ball when we needed to. We're a young team, we make some mistakes at times, but it was good to see them respond and make some big plays and come away with a 20-plus point victory.
"We're showing flashes where we are growing up. We show our immaturity sometimes, too, but we're taking steps in the right direction and we saw that tonight, we showed that we're making progress."
Matty Jones threw for four touchdowns, Rahim Mitchell and Daveon Thorn each returned a kickoff for a touchdown and caught a touchdown pass and Michael Fabbro made two dazzling touchdown grabs as the Crusaders improved to 3-3, winning on homecoming night and Crusaders Athletic Hall of Fame week.
Jones went 11 of 19 for 159 yards and the four scores, and did not turn the ball over, his best showing as the Crusaders starter.
"We have seen flashes of some really, really good stuff from Matty this season and he showed it tonight, he made some really big throws," Bahen said. "He got hit as he threw (a touchdown) and put it right on the money, he made some big-time throws. We've seen him show the potential, he's had some turnovers and we felt like if we cleaned that up this thing could really take off and he took care of the ball tonight and had a really good game."
Thorn hauled in six passes for 80 yards and a 24-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter that all-but put the game away. He had a 76-yard kick return for a score late in the third quarter that was a big response to the Knights (2-4) getting back within 10. Mitchell, who caught a 33-yard touchdown and was Central's leading rusher with 74 yards on 13 totes, kick-started Central with his kick return score, a 89-yarder that came right after Aquinas had gone up 12-0 early in the second quarter.
"We know Rahim and Daveon are electric with the ball in their hands and something big can happen anytime they have the ball," Bahen said. "I can't believe teams kick to them, but they did and we blocked it well and they took advantage."
After the Knights had taken advantage of an early Central turnover and jumped ahead, it was the Crusaders defense that helped shift the momentum, forcing fumbles on back-to-back-to-back STA drives, the second and third of which led to Crusader scores 20 seconds apart.
A fumble led to a 4-yard Ryan Holzworth scoring run after Jones hit a couple of big passes to Thorn and Fabbro, the Jospeh Vranish extra point putting Central on top 13-12 with 25 seconds left in the half and they never trailed again.
On the first snap of the next possession, the Knights fumbled the snap and Central recovered, then on the very next play Jones hit Mitchell on a post route and he made a leaping catch in traffic, stayed on his feet and then raced through the Knights secondary to score and make it 20-12 Crusader lead at halftime.
After Therese Beaulieu was crowned homecoming queen at halftime, Aquinas scored quickly on the first possession of the second half to pull within two points, but Fabbro hauled in touchdowns tosses of 3 and 18 yards, the first of which came on a fourth down, on the next two Crusader drives to put Central back up by multiple scores.
STA's Jamier Jenkins, who led the Knights with 130 yards and two scores, answered late in the third quarter, but Mitchell's kick return and fourth-quarter TD grab put things away for good.
DEFENSIVE PLAYMAKERS
Nate Irvin led the defensive effort for the Crusaders with a pair of sacks, a fumble recovery and a pass bat down. Seth White and Johnny Kostecki each recovered a fumble, Mitchell and Jack Hernon each broke up a pass and Nicky Jones and Kyran Busic combined on a key tackle for loss.
INJURY
Central's Braden Wanchik was injured making a tackle early in the second half and left on a stretcher, though he was moving and alert.
"Prayers for Braden," Bahen said. "He's really important to what we do so we're going to have to have some guys step up, that's small school football. We're thinking about him and praying for him. It was a pretty bad injury.
"Our kids were pretty emotional when he went down, I'm proud of our kids for responding after that and being able to regain composure and finish the game."
UP NEXT
Now winners of back-to-back games and back to the .500 mark, Central continues a run of four out of five at home to close the regular season next Saturday night when they host Southern Local (1-5).