7 October 2023
St. Thomas won its third straight Pioneer Football League game on Saturday at O’Shaughnessy Stadium, edging Butler 17-10. And for the third straight week, the game reached its final seconds before the outcome was decided.
For the second week in a row, the Tommies (4-2, 3-0 PFL)) needed a goal-line stand to preserve victory. That, after the conference opener was decided by a touchdown pass in the closing seconds that broke a tie game.
“I can say that it’s gritty, but I think it’s more than that,” St. Thomas head coach Glenn Caruso said. “This is not necessarily the way we drew it up, but one of the things I love about our little team — and we’re nothing special — is that they are able find ways to have incremental successes, to stack those on top of each other to put them in position to come through at the end.
“That’s a quality nowadays that is quite lost, when people are looking for the big win. But don’t get me wrong, I’m fine if we could win by, like, two scores.”
Butler (4-2, 2-1) scored a touchdown midway through the fourth quarter to make it a 17-10 game. With one minute and 57 seconds to play, the Bulldogs got the ball back with one last chance to pull even — or go for the win with a two-point conversion.
Starting at their own 25-yard line, the Bulldogs pick up a pair of first downs to move into St. Thomas territory. Facing second-and-10 at the Tommies’ 17 with less than a minute to go, a pass attempt fell incomplete, but a roughing-the-passer penalty on St. Thomas linebacker Jack Mohler gave the Bulldogs a first down at the Tommies’ 5-yard line.
A first-down run netted four yards before the Tommies stuffed a pair of rushing attempts from the 1-yard line. On fourth and goal with three seconds to play, Tommies linebacker Ryan Sever deflected a pass to end the game.
“We knew we needed to stay locked in and treat it like anything else,” Mohler said of the goal-line stand. “We knew we had to bring our aggression level up, knowing its a goal-line stand. We just trusted in our teammates and trusted in our brothers that we were going to get the job done.”
Caruso saluted the defense’s ability to stand tall when it mattered the most.
“The way we were able to physically make a wall and move it backwards,” he said. “It happened twice in the game — we’re just paying attention to the goal-line stand at the end. But I don’t think we can look past the red-zone (stop) right before halftime.
“Our offense went for a fourth-and-5 and didn’t get it, and they were on a 60-yard field and marched down. We held them to a field goal (to make it 10-3), and I thought that was massive.”
The Tommies took that 10-3 lead into the locker room at halftime. They scored on the first possession of the game, with Stephen Shagen connecting on a 35-yard field goal.
St. Thomas’ lead grew to 10-0 early in the second quarter when Adebayo ran the ball in from the 2 to cap a 44-yard drive.
Adebayo added another touchdown on a 27-yard run in the third quarter, and finished with 88 yards on 13 carries. The Tommies rushed for 243 yards. Shawn Shipman led the way with 103 yards while Gabe Abel added 49.
“Today was a day that we all ate, and I’m grateful for that,’ Adebayo said.
The Tommies were conservative on offense, with freshman quarterback Tak Tateoka throwing the ball only eight passes, completing five. But Adebayo said that approach didn’t put any more pressure on the running backs to get the job done.
“Tak has an arm; Tak can throw the ball,” Adebayo said. “And we have amazing receivers. So there is no pressure. When one is lacking, we pick each other up. So there is no pressure, we just do our job.”
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