St. Anne’s-Belfield knew they faced a tall task. They needed to play perhaps their finest game of the year to dethrone defending VISAA Division II state champion Trinity Episcopal in a rematch of last year’s final.
So when STAB fell into a three-touchdown hole, it wouldn’t have been shocking if they faded away.
The Saints refused to do that and while Trinity eventually pulled away with an 18-0 closing run, the Saints rallied to even the game before falling 39-21.
“We didn’t quite survive the whole thing but we survived after that first five minutes,” said STAB coach John Blake. “I thought we were going to get run out of here in the first quarter.”
While Trinity’s high-powered passing attack did some solid damage, it was the Titans’ ground game that really made life tough on the Saints as Quinton Wingo exploded for 245 yards and two scores behind a mammoth offensive line that created some solid running lanes throughout the game.
“We’ve got some horses up there, we’ve probably got two BCS linemen who are sophomores now in Luke Freudenthal and Foster Singleton,” said Trinity coach Sam Mickens. “And then you’ve got Jake Hogge a four-year starter going to Cornell … it’s just a lot of good players. And they’re big, and they’re athletic.”
It helped of course that the Saints had to pay so much attention to Trinity quarterback Blake Bowen and his array of weapons in the passing game. That group struck first when Bowen hit Trevion Armstrong for a 42-yard gain on the first play of the game and followed it with a touchdown pass to Tommy Deutsch on the first possession for the Titans. After he hit Zane Lewis for an 84-yard touchdown and Wingo scored midway through the second quarter, STAB appeared in danger of getting blown out.
George Marshall picked off a pass to jumpstart a rally though with under a minute and a half to play in the second quarter.
With 48 seconds left, Jalen Harrison hit Campbell Miller for a touchdown and then an ill-advised trick play on the final play of the half by Trinity went sour as STAB’s Chris Barry picked off a pass and took it to the house as time expired in the half. In a span of one minute of game time, STAB transformed a 21-0 deficit into a manageable 21-14 halftime score.
“When you get in games like this and they do a good job and they make you play a lot of plays, it’s so emotional,” Blake said. “If things aren’t going your way, then you’re in trouble. You kind of get down and when you get down a couple of times it tends to compound. But I’m proud, I think our guys fought really hard.”
Out of the break, STAB marched down the field and scored on a 12-yard touchdown run by Harrison to tie it up at 21-21.
Trinity didn’t panic either though as Bowen threw his third touchdown of the game as part of a 273-yard afternoon on 15-of-22 passing.
“Blake’s really, really good,” Mickens said. “He can make all the throws, he’s calm under pressure. He’s a good player.”
Then Wingo took over as Trinity went to the tailback repeatedly in an effort to milk the clock and close out the game. He scored with 11:37 to play to make it 34-21, then a safety and a field goal with 7:29 left powered by some more solid running by Wingo put things out of reach for a beat-up STAB squad that was nursing multiple injuries including a few to players who played a lot of time on both sides of the ball.
The loss ended a tremendous run by the Saints’ senior class that includes longtime fixtures Harrison and Kareem Johnson who caught six balls for 116 yards against Trinity. STAB went 0-10 during that class’ freshman year, then improved drastically with three straight playoff appearances and a pair of state final berths that both ended at the hands of Trinity Episcopal in 2014 and this season.
“I’m proud of these guys, I’m proud of these seniors,” Blake said. “They’ve gone from 0-10 to 6-4 to 9-2 to 8-3 and being in the championship game two years in a row. There’s not much more than I can say than that.”
