ANOTHER DE LA THRILLER
Final score: No. 11 11 De La Salle 27, Loyola 21
Stars: Anthony Barr (L) 213 yards rushing, 3 TDs; Blake Wayne (DLS) 3 rushing TDs, 1 passing TD.
Key play: Noah Perio returns missed field goal try 75 yards, setting up game-winning touchdown
Key stats: No turnovers, Total yards: DLS 290, Loyola 278; First downs: DLS 16, Loyola 15.
On deck: De La Salle hosts Don Bosco Prep (N.J.) on Saturday, Sept. 27
By Mitch Stephens
MaxPreps.com
GLENDALE, Calif. – The runaway locomotive that high school football fans have come to know at De La Salle has been replaced this season by an exciting tiny hybrid fueled by heart and guts.
For the second straight week and third straight game over two seasons, the national powerhouse and six time mythical national champion pulled out a game at the end, this time 27-21 over a bigger and more physical Loyola of Los Angeles squad led by one of the more impressive athletes you’ll see at the high school level, junior tailback Anthony Barr.
The 6-foot-4, 225-pounder rushed 31 times for 213 yards – his third straight 200-plus outing – and three touchdowns but he and the imposing Cubs couldn’t quite outlast this smallish but resilient De La Salle squad, that scored 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, all coming from senior quarterback Blake Wayne.
The 5-10, 180-pound senior epitomizes this gritty group and he’s not blessed with perfect skill or mechanics. He just finds a way to get the job done.
“Blake had a great game and was really a difference maker,” De La Salle coach Bob Ladouceur said. “He’s a real competitor and wants the ball. If he could do it all he would.”
On Saturday, Wayne scored the game-winning touchdown on a 1-yard sneak with 2 minutes and 46 seconds remaining only after teammate Noah Perio made the play of the game with a 75-yard return of a missed field goal try.
The Cubs (2-1), which took control from the outset on first-quarter TD runs of 35 and 6 yards by Barr, looked like it was going to seal this one by marching 66 yards on 14 plays to the De La Salle 14. In the process it chewed up most of the fourth quarter.
“We were doing just what we wanted to do,” said Loyola coach Jeff Kearnin, whose team didn’t commit a turnover and was penalized for just 40 yards. “All night I thought we were in control and doing what we wanted.”
But the drive stalled and a 33-yard field goal try by Mauricio Alfonso fluttered well short. Perio, who scored a game-winning reception late in last year’s 37-31 CIF State Division I Bowl victory over Centennial (Norco), grabbed the ball just short of the end zone
Had he let it go it would have been ruled an automatic touchback and the Spartans would have had to travel 80 yards with about 3 minutes left.
“I thought to myself that I’m going to have to return this,” Perio said. “I had to make something happen for the team.”
He did by racing down the left De La Salle sideline, somehow avoiding a host would-be tacklers around midfield, cutting back to the right before finally being hauled down by Alfonso at the Loyola 25.
“I saw open field and a whole bunch of blockers,” Perio said. “I just followed the white and green (De La Salle colors).”
Said Wayne: “Noah is a playmaker and does things like that. He’s just a smart football player.”
After a fumble and loss of two yards, Wayne somehow escaped a sack and a sea of Cubs by scrambling 26 yards all the way to the 1. On the next play, he snuck home from the 1 and added a two-point conversion giving the Spartans (2-0) their first lead, 27-21.
Wayne also scored on a 15-yard run to start the fourth quarter, capping a 14-play, 80-yard drive, and in the second quarter he added a 3-yard naked bootleg TD and a 19-yard scoring pass to Michael Dosen.
This was after the second-year starter rushed for three touchdowns including a game-winning 5-yarder with 5:43 left in De La Salle’s 29-28 season opener last week.
“It was almost the same situation this week and that’s what I tried to tell my team in the huddle,” Wayne said. “But I told our coaches I wanted to get the ball in the end.”
But Loyola had the last chance and much like the Cubs did all night they went to Barr, who already has scholarship offers from USC, UCLA and Notre Dame.
He rushed for seven yards then took a swing pass from quarterback Stephen Rokus for 13 yards to near midfield. But De La Salle 5-10, 201-pound linebacker William Marre stopped Barr and Rokus for consecutive 1-yard losses and after two incomplete passes the Spartans had won their third consecutive nail-biter, setting off a wild celebration along their sideline.
Defensive coordinator Terry Eidson blew out a giant sigh of relief. His defense hadn’t exactly shut down any of the last three opponents, except on each of the game’s last three drives.
“We play defense only when we have to,” he yelled in relief to a trio of friends along the sideline. “This is killing me.”
The Spartans, who won a national record 151 games from 1992 to 2004 by an average margin of 32 points, aren’t used to such close calls.
But with this smallish, somewhat limited group and New Jersey and national power Don Bosco coming to Concord next week, not to mention a very tough East Bay Athletic League schedule on the horizon, they better get used to it.
“We need to improve,” Ladouceur said. “We’re not a great football team by any stretch. We’re working on it. … I thought we played better this week. Our guys fought back and never gave up. … (Barr) is a great back and they have some big physical linemen and they got on our guys and pushed us around. We knew he’d get his yards but we made some critical stops at the end.”
They couldn’t stop Barr in the beginning and the Spartans couldn’t move, leading to a 14-0 Loyola lead at the end of the first quarter.
Once he got motoring, Barr, bigger than every De La Salle defender, sliced through the secondary easily while scoring on runs of 35 and 6 yards.
“That dude was big and hard to bring down,” Perio said. “He’s really good.”
Frankly, this one looked like a mismatch, just the opposite of last season’s 55-14 De La Salle win over Loyola in Concord.
“We improved after playing them last year and I know we’ll grow from this one as well,” Kearnin said. “We were executing everything we practiced all week. But we knew (De La Salle) wasn’t going to lie down. They didn’t win 151 straight games doing that.”
On the first play of the second quarter, Wayne hooked up with Dosen on a 19-yard touchdown and after Perio blocked a punt, the Spartans had the ball first-and-goal at the Loyola 4. Two Kylan Butler runs netted three yards and on third down it appeared half his body got into the end zone, but the referees ruled his knee hit right before the goal line.
On fourth down, Butler was smashed for no gain.
“That hurt,” said Ladouceur.
Undeterred, the Spartans forced a quick Loyola punt and went 46 yards in 11 plays capped by a 3-yard naked bootleg TD on fourth down from Wayne, cutting the lead to 14-13 with 1:03 left in the half.
“He called the play himself,” said Ladouceur, who called timeout before the 4th-and-2 play. “He said it would work and it did.”
Said Blake: “I’d been lazy on my fakes last game so I worked on them all week at practice. I could tell it paid off early in this game and it did on that (TD).”
A bad snap on the ensuing extra point made holder Perio scramble to his left. Just before he was going to get stuck, he flipped the ball beautifully to Ryan McVay in the back of the end zone for a 2-point conversion.
One problem. The Spartans were called for ineligible players down field, wiping it out. Again they tried an extra point and again the snap was low and this time Perio’s desperation pass fell incomplete and Loyola led 14-13 at halftime.
When the Cubs took the second-half kickoff and marched 77 yards in eight plays, capped by a 3-yard TD from Barr, De La Salle looked in trouble again, trailing 21-13 with 7:10 left in the third quarter.
But Wayne led them on an equally impressive 14-play, 80-yard drive capped with a pretty 15-yard TD keeper. His 2-point conversion passed failed and De La Salle still trailed, 21-19, with 11:53 left in the game.
“We felt good because we were moving the ball,” Ladouceur said. “But then it was a little uneasy because we had to stop them.”
And that wasn’t happening.
The Cubs rattled off four first downs and chewed up almost eight minutes, but on 2nd-and-6 from the De La Salle 14, the Spartans threw Reed Watne for a 2-yard loss. After an incomplete pass, Alfonso’s field goal try fluttered and Perio and the Spartans were on their way.
"Whatever it takes," Wayne said.
The 2-hour game was remarkably clean with no turnovers and finished remarkably even. De La Salle barely held edges in yards 290-278, first downs 16-15 and most painfully to the Cubs, points.
Kearnin was complete class after the game while holding his infant daughter Maggie.
“We would love to have that (field goal try) back,” Kearnin said. “I would love to have some play calls back on that last drive. We had one mistake (not immediately covering Perio’s return). I don’t think our kids practiced that enough. And (De La Salle) took advantage of that one opening. But that’s what great teams do in close games. It comes down to little things like that. We’ll learn from it and build on it.”
So will the Spartans, said Perio.
“We’re not the most talented team,” he said. “We don’t have what we had like last year. But we still have that heart and determination and desire. We have the will to pull us through.”
De La Salle 27, Loyola 21
De La Salle 0 13 0 14 - 27
Loyola 14 0 7 0 - 21
First quarter
L – Anthony Barr 35 run (Mauricio Alfonso kick), 8:47
L – Barr 6 run (Alfonso kick), 4:10
Second quarter
DLS – Michael Dosen 19 pass from Blake Wayne (Garrett Biel kick), 11:54
DLS – Wayne 3 run (pass failed), 1:07
Third quarter
L – Barr 3 run (Alfonso kick), 7:10
Fourth quarter
DLS – Wayne 15 run (pass failed), 11:53
DLS – Wayne 1 run (Wayne run), 2:46
Team Statistics
First downs: De La Salle 16, Loyola 15
Rushes-yards: DLS 41-224, Loyola 37-231
Passing: DLS 5-11-0-66, Loyola 4-7-0-47.
Total yards: DLS 290, Loyola 278
Turnovers: DLS 0, Loyola 0.
Penalties: DLS 6-40, Loyola 7-40.
Individual Statistics
Rushing
DLS, Blake Wayne 13-89, Kylan Butler 22-88, Terron Ward 4-36, Tyler Anderson 1-7, Joseph Durant 1-4; Loyola, Anthony Barr 31-213, Stephen Rokus 4-15, Reed Watne 2-3.
Passing
DLS, Wayne 5-11-0-66; Loyola, Rokus 4-7-0-47.
Receiving
DLS, Ward 1-26, Michael Dosen 1-19, Jackson Bouza 1-11, Noah Perio 1-9, Butler 1-1. Loyola, Brett Ackerman 3-34, Barr 1-13.
