Fans at The Pit enjoyed seeing their team knock off the No. 1 team in the nation Saturday.
Photos by Wayne Litmer
Another top-ranked squad took it on the chin Saturday night. See more photos from the game below.
St. Edward (Lakewood, Ohio), both the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 and Composite national No. 1 squad, dropped a bitter 21-14 decision to host
Elder (Cincinnati) before 7,000 fans at The Pit.
See the Qwixcore game log from this gameEven though it lost the turnover battle 4-0, Elder (3-1) won the game thanks to a 2-yard touchdown run by
Ja'vahri Portis and an ensuing 2-point conversion pass from
Peyton Ramsey to
Louis Faillace with 10:46 left in the fourth quarter.
Ramsey was intercepted for the fourth time, the second time by
Andrew Dowell, at the St. Edward 14 with 6 minutes remaining.
The nation's top-ranked team drove methodically downfield, converting two fourth-down plays, but a big sack by junior
Joe Schroer made it 4th-and-19 from the Elder 23.
Quarterback
Brett Kean fired over the middle near the goal line where a St. Edward receiver appeared to be hit before the ball arrived. No call, and Elder had pulled the upset.
Kean opened the scoring with a 26-yard touchdown pass to
Shaun Crawford and it appeared St. Edward was on its way, up 7-0 with 10:46 left in the first quarter.
It took the visitors just 74 seconds to get on the board. But they wouldn't score again until midway in the third quarter.
See Mike Dyer's game story in the Cincinnati Enquirer By that time, Elder had taken a 13-7 lead on a pair of 22-yard field goals by
Jerry Porter and a 5-yard touchdown keeper from Ramsey, the latter coming with just six seconds left in the half.
St. Edward took the lead back on a 2-yard touchdown pass from Kean to
Frank Geib with 5:25 left in the third, but the Eagles, who had outscored three foes 127-14 coming in, wouldn't score the rest of the way.
According to Dyer, Ramsey threw for 274 yards and completed 25 of 36. That means only seven of his passes hit the ground. Fallace finished with 13 catches for 145 yards and Elder finished with 412 yards. Kean passed for 198 yards, but St. Edward managed just over 300 yards.
Elder's victory came a week after
Cedar Hill (Texas), then No. 1 in the Xcellent 25 rankings, was upset by
Skyline (Dallas) 40-30. Last week, St. John Bosco (Ramsey, N.J.) also won 24-7 over St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), which was No. 1 in the MaxPreps Composite national rankings.
Elder is also the team that ended the seven-year,109-game winning streak of Charlotte (N.C.) Independence in 2007,
winning that historic contest by 41-34.
