DANVERS — After a mistake-filled first half, the St. John's Prep football team trailed B.C. High by 17 points yesterday at Cronin Stadium. But the Eagles mounted a second half comeback to pull within two points, and were in position to win the game with just seconds remaining.
That's when their hopes of winning and going into their Thanksgiving Day clash with Xaverian unbeaten in the Catholic Conference were dashed.
The Prep's Tad Beuchert lined up kick a 37-yard game-winning field goal with nine seconds left on the clock when B.C. High called a time out. The senior kicker had already made one this season: a 37-yarder on the road in Baltimore against Mount St. Joseph.
During the timeout, Prep coach Jim O'Leary hoped to get him a few yards closer and decided to try a short sideline pass. Quarterback Chris Coady completed it to Tyler Coppola, but he wasn't close enough to the sideline to get out of bounds. Coppola stumbled before heading for the sideline, only to see time expire — and the Eagles on the wrong end of a 36-34 score on Senior Day at Cronin Stadium.
"We were out of timeouts, but after they took one we had the opportunity to get another five or six yards closer — that's all we were looking for; to make it easier for Tad," said O'Leary. "I told (Coady) to throw the ball out of bounds if nobody was open. He found Tyler, but he fell."
The loss by St. John's and B.C. High win sets up an interesting scenario for Thanksgiving. If St. John's (4-5 overall, 2-1 Catholic Conference) beats Xaverian (10-0 overall, 3-0 CC) and B.C. knocks off Catholic Memorial, it would create a three-way tie for the title.
"I have to give St. John's an awful lot of credit for that comeback," said B.C. High coach Jon Bartlett, his team now 5-4. "We called timeout to ice their kicker, but then they lined up in their regular formation so we called another (timeout) to make sure everybody was on the same page. We had been expecting a field goal try."
St. John's Prep's final drive came after Nate Cyr recovered a fumble at his own 30-yard line. George Sessoms and Coady picked up key yards on the ground to keep the drive alive. Coady, who was 10 for 14 passing for 146 yards, completed three passes to Coppola for 27 yards to get them in field goal range.
Sessoms had another monster game on the ground with 19 carries for 206 yards, giving him 1,056 yards for the season. His three touchdowns brought his season total to 13, including eight the last two weeks.
It was Sessoms who engineered the comeback with touchdown runs of 60 and 59 yards to cut the Prep deficit to 30-27 with 8:10 remaining in the third quarter. The visitors scored their lone touchdown of the second half on a 16-yard keeper by senior quarterback Brendan Collins four minutes later. Collins had a hand in all five scores, completing 6 of 13 passes for 132 yards and three TDs along with two runs into the end zone.
But on B.C. High's next possession, Coppola picked off a pass in the end zone and St. John's drove 80 yards in 14 plays to get on the board again. Coady crashed in from a yard out for his second TD of the day, and Beuchert booted his fourth extra point to make it 36-34.
St. John's turned the ball over three times in the first half, and after all three B.C. High put points on the board. A fumble on a punt return gave the visitors the ball on the Prep 33-yard line, and one play later Collins fired a TD strike to Nick Joseph for a lead less than two minutes in.
A bad pitch on a lateral from Coady to Sessoms was recovered by B.C. High at the Prep 15, and three plays later Collins blasted in from a yard out. After Preston Cooper (25 carries for 127 yards) rushed the two-point conversion it was 14-0.
They added two more scores before intermissions, one set up by another St. John's fumble at midfield. Once again Collins found Joseph for a 34-yard TD strike, and kept the ball for a two-point conversion. The Prep kept chipping away starting with a 47-yard, seven-play drive, highlighted by three passes to Dillon Gonzalez for 32 yards to cut it to 30-13 at the half.
