St. Joe’s defeats Deerfield Beach (FL) by Jim McConville special to The Record
MONTVALE – The minute you get comfortable on the football field, bad things can happen. While disaster didn’t strike for St. Joseph in its season opener on Saturday, the Green Knights can take a valuable lesson from the effort.
Up by 21-0 just nine minutes into their game with Deerfield Beach (FL), the Green Knights, the top-ranked Non-Public school in The Record poll, saw complacency set in and it made their task a lot harder than it should have been.
Leave it to Evan Stewart to get things turned around. It was his pick-six touchdown in the first quarter that made it 21-0 and helped usher in the malaise. It was his second pick-six in the waning seconds of the third quarter that helped snap SJR out of the doldrums on the way to a 44-21 defeat of the Bucks.
Stewart’s 49-yard touchdown off the interception was followed by two straight touchdown drives by the offense, and while Deerfield managed a pair of touchdowns of its own (the second after the starters were pulled) there was a decided difference in the manner in which St. Joseph went about its business.
“I think it happened so fast (the 21-0 lead) and we have a lot of new faces out there,” SJR coach Augie Hoffman said, “and I think some of those new faces may have gotten comfortable. In a way it was good for them because they came back and finished the game out hard and that’s what I wanted them to do.”
It was a potential laugher in the opening quarter, even though the Green Knights fumbled away the opening kickoff. They stood tall defensively and a dropped punt snap set them up in Bucks territory. Jaden Budka scored from the 1 to get things going and on the first play after a punt QB Nick Patti found tight end Matt Alaimo for a 47-yard touchdown pass.
Stewart then grabbed his first pick-six on the next play, saying that, “I saw the formation and the fullback coming out and I just read it and stepped in front.”
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From that point, St. Joe’s had four consecutive three and outs to finish the half while Deerfield Beach got a 1-yard QB sneak from Kyle Kaplan to make it 21-7 at the intermission.
Angelo Guglielmello hit a 41-yard field goal for St. Joseph right before Stewart’s second interception. On the play, he said that, “the receiver was crossing and (DB James Ciarlo) was right on him. The ball caromed off of (the receiver) right to me.”
For Stewart, he is still adjusting to his role as a linebacker after playing safety for most of last year.
“I like being involved in more plays, but I’m still learning the linebacker spot,” he said. “I liked playing safety, but I’ll do whatever needs to get done.”
Stat line: St. Joseph only had a 304-267 edge in total yards, as Bucks running back Jaylen Knighton had 138 rushing yards on 21 carries. He was 16-132 in the first half before the SJR defense adjusted and shut down the inside.
Patti was 8 of 18 for 144 yards and two scores, the second a nice interior fake and pass to Ciarlo on a skinny post. He was victimized by a handful of drops, including two potential touchdown bombs. Matt Alaimo had 4 catches for 86 yards.
Eye-opener: The Green Knights special teams had a nightmare day. In addition to the opening fumble, they had back-to-back muffs on punts. It led to Hoffman deciding to put no one back to return punts on the final two Deerfield kicks.
Hoffman on Stewart: “He’s such a dynamic player. You can see the difference as a third-level guy (safety) coming down to a second-level (linebacker). He moves faster than everybody else. At the end of the day, he made two great football plays.”