Football: St Rita hitting the road for O’Fallon

Updated: November 10, 2011 6:53PM

Call St. Rita’s defense stingy.

The Mustangs defense has allowed just 120 points in 11 games this season. That’s 10.9 per game. (Three interception return scores by opponents account for the other 21 points allowed.)

That’s rock-solid, especially considering St. Rita’s presence in the Catholic League Blue. The defense’s effort has continued to be stout in the playoffs, yielding just 23 points combined to Shepard and Andrew.

This week’s Class 7A quarterfinal assignment at O’Fallon (10-1) will be a much stiffer test. The Panthers score and score, and score some more. They’ve piled up 422 points this season, an average of 38.4 per game. Six times, they’ve scored more than 40 in a game. Last weekend’s 34-31 second-round victory at Pekin might seem like an inferior output, but survival is the key in the playoffs, and O’Fallon survived.

Can St. Rita (9-2) do the same Friday on the Panthers’ home field, traditionally an abattoir for playoff opponents from the north?

“Always on the road, you want to get off the bus in a hurry,” Mustangs coach Todd Kuska said. “You’ve got to be ready.”

The Mustangs plan to arrive in O’Fallon, in a St. Louis suburb five hours distant from 77th and Western, about 4 p.m. for the 7 p.m. game.

“A regular Friday game for us,” Kuska said. “It’s a bit longer ride, but we’ll get off the bus at 4 p.m., decompress, then get into football mode.”

Once that happens, St. Rita will have to stop O’Fallon senior Ejay Johnson, whom nobody has stopped for long this season. Johnson has scored 29 touchdowns, four of them in his 241-yard outing against Pekin. He’s run for 1,307 yards this season.

“We aren’t ready to go home yet,” Johnson said after the Pekin game. “We wanted to keep playing for another week or so.”

“Johnson is probably the most explosive back we’ve played against,” Kuska said. “And they’ve got a very multifaceted offense.”

It includes quarterback Todd Porter. He’s completed 60.5 percent of his passes, with 27 to the sure hands of Darius Mosely. Porter’s 11 touchdown passes have been spread around three receivers, with Mosely hauling in four scores. Johnson’s also a threat.

O’Fallon, co-champion of the Southwestern Conference with East St. Louis, has to deal with a balanced Mustangs attack that has perked up lately. Tim Lombard (807 yards, 11 touchdowns) and Mike Zunica (297 yards, 4 TDs) have developed into a rushing double-threat, while quarterback Scott Thomas completes just enough passes, many to Kenny Golladay, to keep the defense honest.

“As diverse as they are on offense, they’re the same on defense,” said Kuska, noting the speed of O’Fallon’s secondary.

O’Fallon is 10-1 at home the past two seasons.

The winner advances to play the winner of Saturday’s game between Wheaton Warrenville South and East St. Louis in the 7A semifinals.

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.