Football: Goal-line stand boosts St Rita past O'Fallon

Updated: November 11, 2011 10:41PM

O’FALLON — With fourth and goal on the St. Rita 1, the Mustangs ahead by five points, and just under four minutes to play, the Mustangs held O’Fallon’s Ejay Johnson out of the end zone.

Ball game? Not yet. One great defensive stand wasn’t enough. St. Rita would have to come up big again to advance to the Class 7A semifinal round.

And they did. With fourth and 2 on the St. Rita 47, O’Fallon’s Todd Porter completed a pass to Johnson. He had the yardage, but suddenly, he didn’t have the football. It was knocked out of his grasp by Will McNamara, and St. Rita’s Zack Soria fell on it on the Mustangs’ 47.

That sealed St. Rita’s 19-14 victory Friday night before about 3,000 fans, about 500 of them having made the five-hour trip from Chicago in vehicles. They’ll need only clouds to float back and prepare for St. Rita’s first semifinal game at home since 2003.

“Our defense has been doing it all year long, and they did a great job tonight,” Mustangs coach Todd Kuska said. “O’Fallon is a very explosive offensive team, and to hold them to 14 points is a credit to the job those guys did.”

Heroes were abundant, from the team effort to keep Johnson out of the end zone on the fourth-and-goal play from the 1 — he lost four yards — to Soria grabbing the loose ball to end O’Fallon’s season after it appeared Johnson’s reception would keep their final drive alive.

“We take pride in playing great defense, and we talked about getting a little credit for it,” Kuska said. “We’ve been flying under the radar a little.”

No longer. The semifinal spotlight means St. Rita (10-2) plays the winner of Saturday’s game between East St. Louis Senior and Wheaton Warrenville South in East St. Louis.

Johnson entered the game with 29 rushing touchdowns and left it with 29. He caught a 6-yard touchdown pass from Porter with 32.7 seconds left in the first half, but ran for only 35 yards on 14 carries.

That helped make the difference for the Mustangs. Their offense was productive enough, and the victory meant Kuska didn’t have nightmares about a missed extra point kick, missed field goal and failed two-point conversion on the way home. With Kenny Golladay hauling in two touchdown passes from Scott Thomas (11-of-21, 113 yards) and Tim Lombard (24 carries, 74 yards) running for another, St. Rita scored the points it needed.

The Mustangs’ offensive tone was set when Thomas hit Golladay in the right corner of the end zone on a fourth-down play from the O’Fallon 22 to open the scoring. Golladay fended off the defensive play of Marcio Cowens to grab the ball with 7:08 left in the first.

But even Golladay knew this game was won by the defense.

“The defense, they’ve had our back the whole season,” Golladay said. “I’m loving it.”

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