Arlington Catholic thwarts St. Mary’s

LYNN – The St. Mary’s football team had plenty of chances to get a win over Arlington Catholic at Manning Field on Saturday. But the Spartans couldn’t punch the ball into the end zone.Three times, the Spartans had chances inside the Cougar 20 but came away empty-handed. Arlington Catholic, meanwhile, took advantage of its shots as both Charlie Bates and Justin Cerra rushed for over 100 yards as the defending Catholic Central League/Large champs took a 29-8 victory.”Our offense was working well all game; we just couldn’t put it in,” St. Mary’s coach Jeff Smith said. “But you’ve got to give AC credit. They are well-coached and they played well (Saturday).”The Cougars got the win almost in spite of themselves. On numerous occasions, AC committed facemask and personal foul penalties that kept St. Mary’s in the game. For the night, the Cougars committed 11 penalties for 105 yards. But the Spartans were unable to take advantage of the gifts being doled out to them.After St. Mary’s stopped AC on downs to begin the game, the Spartans methodically moved the ball downfield thanks to the hard running of Kwesi Foster and Richie Barrows along with a pair of facemask penalties against the Cougars. But a false start on fourth down at the AC 37 halted the momentum and led to a punt, which pinned the Cougars at the eight.But quarterback Corey Spencer and AC’s spread offense didn’t waste a lot of time in flipping the field position to their favor. An 18-yard completion to Andrew Manning got the Cougars in good position, but a pair of holding penalties set up a first-and-26 from the 10 on the first snap of the second quarter.That’s where Cougar coach Serge Clivio dipped into Boise State’s bag of tricks, calling for the hook-and-ladder play. Spencer completed a pass to Manning at the 19, who in turn lateraled to Brown for a 13-yard run to the 33. Brown also went for a 19-yard gain on the next play.Spencer and Manning hooked up for a 22-yard gain to the Spartan 25 before Spencer scored on a 13-yard keeper one play later for a 7-0 lead.It stayed 7-0 until the final moments of the half, when Travis Stanley picked off a John LaMothe pass at the Cougar 36 with 1:12 left.Spencer immediately had AC in St. Mary’s territory thanks to a pair of completions to Joe Wesoloski and a nine-yarder to Manning. Brown then ate up the final 32 yards on three carries, the last being a four-yard TD with 18 seconds left. Stanley added the 2-point conversion and AC led 15-0 at the half.St. Mary’s got the ball to begin the second half needing to make up some ground on the scoreboard. Foster was the workhorse on a drive that began at the Spartan 30 and ate nearly eight minutes off the clock. But the Cougar defense stood tall and stuffed Foster on fourth-and-four at the AC 28 to force the turnover on downs.Inside the final minute of the quarter, however, St. Mary’s made a fatal mistake as Foster fumbled and Larry Gerrity recovered at the Spartan 12. Cerra scored on the next play to give AC a 22-0 lead through three quarters.The Cougar defense then stopped the Spartans on downs at the AC 10 with just over eight minutes remaining. Cerra then dashed 90 yards on the next snap to make it 29-0.St. Mary’s would get on the board with 26 seconds left on Nick Rogers’ six-yard run, but the missed chances were too much to overcome.”We definitely have to work on our red-zone attack,” Smith said. “Our record doesn’t show it, but we’ve been playing well.”