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Roman Catholic Continues Historic Season: Makes First State Championship Appearance in 41-17 Win

Tagged under: District 1, District 12, Gameday Hub, News

| November 30, 2024

“I feel like we still got more work to do, because we got another opportunity we have a game.” Said Coach Richard Prete.

Until there’s an outcome next week, November 29th, 2024 will go down as the greatest achievement in the history of the School’s Football Program. Roman Catholic will be attending their first-ever State Championship game. In a season that has shown both ups and downs, this certainly goes in the up collum.

“I feel like the expectations are high, so we’ve been putting in the work and now it’s time to shine, it’s time to go.” Said Roman QB Semaj Beals.

The first quarter flew through. Rustin ran their run-heavy offense against Roman’s all-around style, yet all the first quarter produced were punts and a fumble. A 12-minute quarter over in 19 minutes is rare, but it was done. Rustin forced a fumble to end the first and would get a play-off before the quarter ended. They started the second already in the red zone at the 20-yard line in a 2nd and 1. Much like the first quarter, defense was the story. Roman got lucky and forced a field goal only to go down 3-0. Each team traded punts, which set up Roman at their 28 with 3:01 remaining in the half. Putting together a great drive, they went down the field and finally got themselves on the board. Going 72 yards down the field in 1 minute and 57 seconds, this looked like the true Roman offense that we’re used to seeing. Semaj Beals found Eyan Stead Jr. running down the middle, and Roman now suddenly led 7-3 with 1:08 remaining in the half. Rustin didn’t do anything with the ball after getting It back, so we went into halftime with Roman leading 7-3.

 

Already coming off their late-quarter score, Roman started off the second half with the ball and shot out of the gates, showing no signs of slowing down. Stead Jr. found himself open on the left side of the field and Beals didn’t want to miss it. Roman now led 14-3 with 10:40 in the third only taking off 1 minute and 20 seconds. Rustin was forced to punt on their opening drive, but with the help of a great bounce from the ball, Roman was now forced to start at their 3-yard line with still 8:28 in the third quarter. Roman found their footing and looked like a new team coming out of the half, and they kept that looking good. On their second drive of the half, Eisa Nealy wanted in on the scoring action. A simple screen pass went all the way to the endzone and Roman now led 21-3 with 5:40 in the third. Rustin finally had a sign of life after Chase Hatton returned a kick all the way to the red zone. A few plays later he finished the job. Hatton cut into the lead with 3:33 in the third and now Rustin trailed 21-10. The third ended with the score 21-10. Both Rustin and Roman now each had a touchdown on the board.

“The Offense got the defense the defense got the offense. We got each other’s back. We gone come out here and put up points and the defense gone come out here and stop them” said Beals.

Beals wasn’t wrong. Just like the third, Roman opened up the quarter, scoring a touchdown. On the first play in from the quarter, Jojo Delecce went straight up the middle down the gut of the defense, extending the lead to 28-10 with 11:52 in the game. All things now were going Roman’s way, and it continued that way when they recovered Rustin’s fumble from their first play of scrimmage. With 11:43 in the game, Roman now had scored a touchdown and recovered a fumble. Roman moved the ball down the field to the 5-yard line. Beals threw a fade pass to Nealy and Nealy went up, snatching the ball over the defender’s head to extend the lead to 34-10 with 10:03 left in the game. The way the game has been going, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to hear that Rustin punted. Followed by Rustin’s punt, Jeremiah Tabb wanted his score of the day. Much like Delecce’s score, Tabb only had to go straight up the gut taking it all the way into the endzone with 5:44 remaining in the game and extending the lead to 41-10. The game was all over, the only remaining score came from Rustin, and it came from the hands of Hatton for his second. A 70-yard rush to the right side of the field drew Rustin in down 41-17 with 5:23 remaining.

“Coach Prete gave us a motivational speech, got our minds right and we was ready to go after that.” Said Nealy on what happened in the locker room at halftime.

 

All was said and done at this point in the game. All that needed to happen was for the clock to run out, and Roman would officially be attending their first-ever State Championship.

“We’re gonna have a heck of an opponent whoever it is [Bishop McDevitt], but I think it’s a culmination of all the work of these guys. This is not a one-year thing. This is our sixth year at this chipping away. The last two years we lost to a really, really good Imhotep team by one score each game. I think last year if we win the Imhotep game, we win the state title. It didn’t happen but here we are, and we got one more to go” said Coach Prete.

“Feels good man. This is what we want. We work hard for it, and we ready to go. We ready to get back to practice and do what we do and win the State Championship.” Said Nealy

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