St. Mary’s football edges Austin Prep

READING ? It really would be a difficult task for a football game to have quite as exciting of an ending as the St. Mary’s-Austin Prep game Saturday.The Spartans escaped with the hard-earned 22-20 victory as they watched the ball land on the turf on a two-point conversion with 20 seconds left in the game.St. Mary’s22Austin Prep20 “It was an excellent win,” St. Mary’s coach Matt Durgin said. “We knew that they were going to give us a battle. We battled through it and found a way to win.”Despite a first quarter fumble inside the five-yard line, junior running back Todd Collier proved to be the Spartans’ (7-1) most dangerous weapon.”This was a great team win,” said Durgin, “but we rode Todd today.”Collier exploded for a 52-yard touchdown run in the second quarter, which made the score 14-0 at the time. He then was the catalyst of a 15-play, 80-yard touchdown drive that ate up over seven minutes of the game clock and eventually proved to be the game winner. He was handed the ball nine of the 14 plays in the drive (for the most part it was the exact same play every time; he would come in motion from the wing and receive a pitch and then move between the guard and the tackle on the right side).”I really have to give kudos to (the Spartans) offensive line,” Cougars coach Bill Maradei said. “They beat us in our own game ? smash-mouth football. We knew what was coming, and we couldn’t stop it.”Collier finished the game with 177 yards rushing and the two touchdowns. He agreed with Maradei’s assessment of the play of the line.”All of the credit has to go to the line,” said Collier. “They came together and just opened up the holes. Austin Prep was really a tough team.”Jonathan Capano launched a 31-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Barrows for the Spartans’ first touchdown of the game.Austin Prep really stepped up its play in the second quarter. After falling behind by 14 points, the Cougars ripped off a methodical 19-play drive that spanned over 10 minutes. Joe Barry found tight end Chris Mulrenan in the corner of the end zone with only 35 seconds remaining in the quarter.”That was the most important drive of the game for us,” said Maradei. “We changed the momentum of the game there. We’re certainly a resilient team. The kids play hard and kept fighting. But St. Mary’s deserved to win.”The Cougars had another long touchdown drive in the third quarter that was capped off by a nine-yard touchdown run by Joe Diaz. In the fourth quarter, they put together one last touchdown drive, but ultimately lost the game on the failed two-point conversion.