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Larkin wins on touchdown return
| Andrew A. Nelles~For Sun-Times Media |
Updated: September 17, 2011 12:18AM
When senior Larkin receiver Shaquille Mosley ran a short post pattern and turned a Mike Newquist pass into a stunning 58-yard touchdown with 4:58 to play Friday against St. Charles East, it wasn’t quite enough for the Upstate Eight River win because of a missed extra point try.
However, Mosley wasn’t done running. Teammate Luka Bogicevic blocked Danny Muzzalupa’s attempt at a game-winning 27-yard field goal, and Mosley was right there to scoop it up and bolt 80 yards with 13 seconds remaining in the game for the touchdown that spoiled the Saints’ homecoming game in a 26-20 Royals comeback victory.
“Coach told me to crash and my guy Luka told me he was going inside,” Mosley said. “When he went inside, he jumped and blocked it. I saw the ball in the open field, got it, and I wasn’t going to get caught.
“I knew we could come back. Over the whole year, we’ve been a second-half team.”
The Royals scored 26 straight points after being dominated most of the first half and failing behind 20-0 in the second quarter.
“We stuck in it the whole game,” said Bogicevic, who caught the kick cleanly with his left hand after a high snap from center delayed Muzzalupa’s field goal attempt a split second. “We didn’t want to lose. We’re winners. We came here to win and that’s what we did.”
Rodrigo Tapia’s extra-point try had gone wide right for Larkin after Mosley’s 58-yard TD strike, leaving the game tied at 20. Muzzalupa had missed an extra-point kick after the Saints’ first TD on Carter Reading’s 10-yard run to finish the game-opening drive.
The Saints (0-4, 0-2) then marched into range for the try at the winning field goal with a 13-play drive — their only sustained offense of the second half against the Royals. But it ended in the blocked kick.
“We started looking around and wondering who’s got fresh legs to be able to try to go block (the kick),” Larkin coach Mike Scianna said. “We’re scarce on the sidelines and we lost a player (Niko Morado) to an injury Thursday.”
The Saints held Larkin to 22 first-quarter yards, ran in the first half for 175 yards themselves, and got Reading’s TD runs of 10 and 7 yards and Jacob Bruce’s 14-yard TD run in piling up the 20-0 lead.
Just before a prolonged halftime for homecoming festivities, Newquist completed five passes on a march to a 9-yard TD pass to Mosley.
With 5:31 left in the third quarter, running back Mo Jackson pulled Larkin within 20-14 with his 12-yard run en route to an 18-carry, 141-yard effort.
The Royals (2-2, 1-1) had another drive die on downs at the Saints’ 6, but then Newquist found Mosley on the third-and-four, 58-yard strike with 4:58 left.
“We’re never dead,” said Newquist. “There hasn’t been a quarter we have given up out here.
“Our defense has shut three teams out in the second half. The second half is ours.”
Newquist finished 11 of 17 for 192 yards, finding Justin Banks six times for 75 yards and Mosley five ties for 117 yards.
“Newquist stepped up,” Scianna said. “I’ve been waiting for him all year and there it was. And when he’s on, man he’s tough, he’s very tough.
“He controls it and opens up stuff for Mo Jackson, our receivers — everything just kind of went our way in the second half.”
The Saints got 178 yards on 26 rushes from Reading in the losing effort. Larkin held them to 110 yards in the second half after they piled up 193 in the first.
“I’m at a loss,” a stunned Saints coach Mike Fields said. “I give Larkin a lot of credit. Their kids never quit and our young men still have got a lot of growing up to do.
“And they really do, and boy this one hurts.”
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