Flyers' comeback shocks St. Rita

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For St. Rita, it couldn’t have started out any better, and it couldn’t have ended up any worse.

East St. Louis scored the final 28 points of the game to stun visiting St. Rita 35-28 in the Class 7A quarterfinals Saturday afternoon.

The Flyers (11-1) will travel to Glenbard West for the semifinals, while St. Rita ends its season at 10-2.

“Everything that went right for them to start, went wrong for us down the stretch,” St. Rita coach Todd Kuska said. “We didn’t take advantage of enough of their turnovers, and that cost us.”

The Mustangs forced four East St. Louis turnovers and scored twice off them. But with the game tied at 28, they couldn’t convert after Marty Hopkins recovered a fumble at the Flyers’ 26-yard line. St. Rita missed a 41-yard field goal and East St. Louis took over at its own 20 with 6:09 left in the fourth quarter.

Eight plays later, Detchauz Wray found Kraig Appleton on a 14-yard touchdown pass to the left side of the end zone on a third-and-seven play, and the Flyers took their first lead of the game with 2:45 to play.

Wray finished 12-of-23 for 188 yards and four touchdowns with one interception.

The Mustangs jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first 5:30 of the game on a 38-yard touchdown run by Jahwon Akui on the first play from scrimmage and a 1-yard run by Dave Marciano.

St. Rita led 14-7 at halftime and Marciano returned the second-half kickoff for a touchdown.

“We hadn’t cracked the kickoff all year,” Marciano said. “I knew we needed it, and I just stuck behind the blocks.

“This was our game. We had a team that was able to do it, but fate was on their side. I’ll give it to them for coming back, but St. Rita was the better team and we should have won the game.”

Akui finished with 23 carries for 104 yards.