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DeSimone dominates for Nazareth
Updated: August 27, 2011 9:25PM
Nazareth senior Joe DeSimone doesn’t consider his move from linebacker to safety this season as a transition.
“It’s all the same,” DeSimone said. “It’s still football. I don’t care where I play. It was kind of hard getting the reads down at first, but I’ve got it all down now and I’m just excited to be out there.”
DeSimone looked good in his new role Saturday, helping Nazareth open the season with an impressive 17-0 East Suburban Catholic Conference victory over Benet (0-1) in LaGrange Park.
The 5-foot-11, 200-pound DeSimone returned an interception 45 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter to open up some breathing room and highlight the shutout.
“Joey is so versatile,” Nazareth coach Tim Racki said. “He just really caught on to the safety position this summer. He’s full of confidence.”
Nazareth, which won just one ESCC game last season, allowed just 145 yards of total offense against Benet, which beat the Roadrunners 48-21 last season.
The Roadrunners (1-0) opened the scoring in the first quarter when fullback Andrew Bartucci scored on a 16-yard touchdown pass by senior quarterback Sam Poulos on a bootleg to make it 7-0 with 1:17 left.
Matt Ramsey, who had two extra-point kicks, then booted a 32-yard field goal with no time on the clock before halftime to make it 10-0 at the break.
DeSimone’s interception return with 2:26 remaining in the third quarter closed the game’s scoring.
“It was good to get the interception,” DeSimone said. “They threw nothing special at us and I just read it and went for it and ended up in the end zone. It feels great to get a shutout. We prepared all week for their no huddle (offense) and Coach Racki got us conditioned. I was surprised how well our D came out. It was a total team effort. We got a lot of experience on our D and we have a lot of speed. Benet thought they were going to run all over us like last year, but we said never again. It’s not going to happen.”
Poulos completed just 5 of 14 passes for 37 yards, but led the Nazareth with 55 rushing yards on nine carries. Junior running back Rudy Romagnano added 53 yards on 16 carries. Thomas Gray contributed a sack to the shutout.
“I’m very pleased with the defense obviously,” Racki said. “Any time you get a shutout in this conference it’s quite an accomplishment. We had a really demanding camp, so it was nice to see them have some enjoyment today. That was the goal. I told them during practice I’m a different person. I want to be more demanding than what they’re going to see on Friday and Saturday.”
Benet junior quarterback Kevin Weller made his debut with the Redwings after transferring from Neuqua Valley. He didn’t play in the first half, but completed 8 of 15 passes for 64 yards and two interceptions in the second half.
Nick Mankowski, who started the game at quarterback, caught five passes for 35 yards.
“They have a lot of experience and we don’t have any experience and that kind of showed,” Benet coach Pat New said. “When you’re inexperienced, you have a tendency to make rookie mistakes and that’s exactly what happened. We’re hoping to eliminate them, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.”
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