ST. JOSEPH'S PREP WINS BEHIND LAVELLE, MORNHINWEG
Ignoring
boisterous chants from the Gonzaga student section,
St. Joseph's Prep (Philadelphia) senior
quarterback
Skyler Mornhinweg completed a 51-yard pass on the Hawks'
first play from scrimmage to set up a 10-yard touchdown run by sophomore
running back
Vincent Moffett.
"We just game-planned the heck out
of it and the coaches did a great job knowing what plays to call," said
Mornhinweg, who
verbally committed to Penn State earlier in the year.
Skyler Mornhinweg passed for 207 yards and one touchdown for St. Joe's.
Photo by Jim Stout
But
despite how easy that first drive looked, the 41-14 win by St. Joe's
over Gonzaga wasn't decided until late in the third quarter when junior
running back
Joe LaValle carried several tacklers into the end zone to
score on a 10-yard touchdown run.
"That run is what put [the
game] away," said LaValle, who also tacked on a 10-yard touchdown run
with 8:47 left in the game. "That's when they started breaking down. I
give [all the credit] to my line."
A muffed Gonzaga punt covered
in the end zone by junior linebacker
Todd Jones gave St. Joe's a 13-0
lead with 2:57 remaining in the first quarter, and it appeared the game
was slowly slipping away from the Eagles.
But after being held
scoreless on their next three possessions, Gonzaga junior quarterback
Connor Ennis and junior wide receiver
Paris Person hooked up for a
23-yard touchdown. The extra point failed but the Eagles had pulled to
within 13-7.
Mornhinweg, who is the son of Philadelphia Eagles
offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, didn't let two first-half
interceptions slow him down. Instead, he led the Hawks on a 44-yard
scoring drive, capped by a 14-yard touchdown pass to senior tight end
Eric Medes to give the Hawks a 21-7 lead at the half. It was the drive
that would prove to be the game-winner.
"We knew it wasn't
important and we knew we needed to get a score in the first half," said
Mornhinweg, who completed 15 of 24 passes for 207 yards, one touchdown
and three interceptions. "I relied on my teammates and they picked me up
and we got in the end zone."
Despite the late first-half score,
St. Joe's coach Gabe Infante reinforced to his players in the locker
room that the game wasn't over yet.
"If Gonzaga has shown anything
over the past couple weeks and the past year under coach [Aaron] Brady,
who does a tremendous job, it's that those kids play hard and are going
to play for four quarters," Infante said. "I told this team that if we
are going to win this game, we were going to have to come out after
halftime and the score would be 0-0 and we had to play a second half as
if it was the first part of the game all over again. And our kids did
that."
Medes picked off a pass from his linebacker position and
returned it 39 yards for the score to give the Hawks their final margin
of victory with 5:44 left in the game.
"Playing in this
atmosphere was just amazing," Medes said as he knelt in the end zone
after the game. "We prepare so much. We practice over three hours a day.
It's all worth it."
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