DANVERS — The Super Bowl rematch between St. John’s and Catholic Memorial Saturday lived up to the hype.
In a back-and-forth game, both teams exchanged blows from start to finish. But the Eagles fell just short in a 36-34 loss at Glatz Field- St. John’s first loss of the season.
Both quarterbacks were on in this one, with St. John’s Matt Crowley (11-of-19, 302 yards, four touchdowns) and the Knights’ JC Petrongolo (12-19, 267 yards, four touchdowns) exchanging big plays.
“It was a great high school football game,” Eagles coach Brian St. Pierre said. “We hurt ourselves in the first half. I don’t know if that proved to be our undoing but we needed to play better in the first half. We had unforced errors.”
The Eagles actually got off to a promising start, going ahead 7-0 lead thanks to a 1-yard touchdown run from Crowley (41 rushing yards), but those errors changed things fast.
St. John’s next three drives ended in a pair of turnovers and a missed field goal. The Knights took full advantage with a trio of touchdown drives to go ahead 21-7.
But the Eagles started the second half on fire. Crowley found Matt Duchemin (five catches, 183 yards, two touchdowns) on an 88-yard touchdown and connected with Jackson Delaney on the next drive for a 37-yard score. However, a missed extra point and a failed 2-point try still left the Eagles trailing 21-19
“I don’t think we played great up front,” St. Pierre said. “But we took advantage of their aggression a little bit in the second half. We made some adjustments. Catholic Memorial is a tough team. It hurts when really you play an even game and miss an extra point. It’s amazing that it comes down to those types of things.”
From there both sides went back and forth in a crazy fourth quarter. Petrongolo got the Knights back on the board with a 62-yard touchdown pass to Zach Mitchell and Crowley followed that with a with another touchdown pass to Delaney to cut Catholic Memorial’s lead to 28-26.
The Eagles forced Catholic Memorial into a 3rd-and-32 next, but Petrongolo hit Mitchell with a perfect pass between two defenders for a 61-yard touchdown to put the Knights ahead 34-26 (missed PAT).
With just a few minutes remaining in the game Crowley drove the Eagles down the field and threw a 32-yard touchdown to Duchemin, but St. John’s failed another two-point try, keeping the Knights lead at 36-34.
It was the last chance St. John’s would get. After a failed onside kick the Knights ran out the clock and walked away with the win.
“I’m really proud of how we battled,” St. Pierre said. “(Catholic Memorial) is a lot more experienced than us. They have their whole team back from last year. We’re very new and they’ve been (beating teams) pretty bad down there. I thought we played pretty well. I’m proud of my guys. It wasn’t perfect, we have a lot to fix. I thought it was great competition. Hats off to them, they’re a great team. But we’re just going to keep grinding.”
The Eagles (5-1) will look to bounce back in another tough Catholic Conference game a BC High Saturday (2)
“We already talked about it, it doesn’t get any easier,” St. Pierre said. “We have a conference game at BC High. We have to get back on the horse pretty quick. I trust our guys. I think they get that. They’ll get the long weekend, lick their wounds a bit and I expect them to be a pretty hungry team going to BC High.”
