It wasn’t the distance needed, nor the situation in the game. The reason St. Anne’s-Belfield coach John Blake took a big gamble after his team’s opening drive looked to go three and out was a little more simple — first the rest of his staff didn’t talk him out of it, and second, well it’s more of a personal thing.
“I’ll be honest, I hate punting,” Blake said. “It’s one of my biggest pet peeves — I hate the play all the way around. I asked (my staff) and they didn’t say anything, so I said why not. We literally put (that fake punt play) in yesterday.”
So when Kareem Johnson took that fake punt for a 49-yard touchdown to open up a busy night of scoring for the Saints, it was pretty obvious that he made his coach proud. Johnson only touched the ball three times, but all three times found him in the endzone. His fake punt, a pair of touchdown receptions from quarterback Lee Parkhill who was very efficient, and then a big second half from Jalen Harrison and Jake Allen paved the way for STAB as its bounced back from a loss to defending state champion Bishop Sullivan with a 54-14 win over Trinity Episcopal.
“We came out and played hard,” Blake said. “It was a rough week of practice with a bunch of kids out sick. I felt that today we really had a good talk, got everyone focus and played well. I told them, if we come out focused, we’re pretty good.”
STAB trailed for only a few minutes, and really only because its 2-point convert failed after Johnson’s big play on special teams. The Saints looked to be in an early big-play fight with Trinity Episcopal’s Blake Bowen hitting Trevi Armstrong for 35 yards to give the visitors a 7-6 lead. But five minutes later, the Saints answered with a methodical drive capped by a 20-yard pass from Parkhill to Johnson, and there was little that Trinity Episcopal could do to slow down STAB from that point forward.
“We had trips on one side and Kareem isolated on the other,” Parkhill said. “When you have an athlete like him isolated that’s got to be the first look. It worked out well.”
Up 12-7, Jake Allen capped the next Saints drive with a 1-yard rushing touchdown to open up the first minutes of the second quarter. On the next drive, Johnson picked up his third TD of the day, this one on a Parkhill pass from 14 yards out to push it to 26-7 with 4:10 to go until the break.
“We’ve been working (on the passing game) and Lee’s really getting his passes on target,” Johnson said. “Both touchdowns for me were perfect throws. I think the offensive line did a great job too, gave Lee the time to throw the ball.”
After targeting Johnson early on, Parkhill shifted his attention to Jalen Harrison on the next few STAB possessions, first with a 72-yard bomb for a touchdown to put the Saints up by 26.
“It’s always good to be able to spread it around,” Parkhill said. “I can’t pin point one guy, I just can’t do that. The ability for us to be able to spread it out to Kareem, then hit Jalen way down the field, that’s just huge.”
But In what was Trinity Episcopal’s last breath of air, the Titans marched down field and scored Bowen pass to Armstrong for 17-yard touchdown to make it 33-14.
The second half was all STAB. For starters, Parkhill and Harrison continued to excel in the passing game, and the final nail in the coffin was the combination of the Saints defense forcing turnovers and Allen delivering the hammer at running back. Lucas Logan had a 35-yard interception return for a touchdown to open up the scoring in the second half for the Saints. After Allen bruised his way though a drive to set up first and goal, freshman Michael DiGiacomo scored on a run from seven yards out. Jameel Wilson then punched in a 17-yard run at the last seconds of the third quarter to make it 54-14.
“We ran the ball pretty well in the fourth quarter,” Blake said. “Our guys, we’re getting there, we’re picking it up. We’ve got the tools.”
STAB’s defense forced four turnovers, three interceptions and a fumble, and got three more turnover on downs while not turning the ball over themselves the entire night.
Parkhill finished 7 for 11 passing with 211 yards and three touchdowns. Allen had 83 yards on 10 attempts and also a 49-yard reception on a screen play. Wilson added 73 yards on the ground with his 12 attempts. Johnson had 80 yards of offense on his one rush and two catches, all three for touchdowns. Harrison finished with three catches for 113 yards.
And most importantly to Blake, STAB only punted twice, and that second one was with his second team offense working down the clock in the fourth.
“Losing to Bishop Sullivan brought the energy back,” Johnson said. “We’re looking to get the winning streak back together.”
The Saints (3-1) head to Nansemond-Suffolk on Friday at 7 p.m.
