#2 La Salle College Takes Down #4 St. Joseph’s Prep 31-20 (VIDEO RECAP)

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Davin Ridall | October 5, 2025

PHILADELPHIA – Last year, the regular season matchup between these two teams came down to a 35-34, four overtime thriller. This time around wasn’t nearly as good of a matchup as last year’s was, but was still an amazing matchup as it normally is. #2 La Salle College ultimately came out on top with a 31-20 road victory over #4 St. Joseph’s Prep.

Early on in this game, it was clear that the Explorers’ defense came to play, forcing multiple three and outs for the Hawks offense, as well as some key turnovers. Now for St. Joseph’s Prep, they had a little trouble with penalties in this one, including six penalties in the first half alone.

The first quarter didn’t feature any scoring, as Chris Heck’s field goal attempt for La Salle sailed wide left which was the only real chance for points in that quarter. The second quarter was much better for La Salle, starting of course with their two touchdowns, the first one to Joey O’Brien from 6 yards out, and the second one to Owen Johnson from 8 yards out. The play of the quarter came towards the end of it, as near midfield, Hawks’ quarterback Charlie Foulke fired a pass over the middle and it went off the hands of Colton McAleer and into the arms of Jimmy Mahoney and returned all the way inside the red zone.

That interception set up a field goal attempt in the final seconds for La Salle which was right down the middle, giving the Explorers a 17-0 lead heading into halftime.

In the second half, St. Joseph’s Prep finally found their stride on offense, scoring two touchdowns in the third quarter, both of them being to receiver Jett Harrison. The only problem for the Hawks was that La Salle’s offense didn’t go away either, so the Hawks still trailed by 11 points when the fourth quarter rolled around.

Early the fourth quarter, La Salle seemingly put the game on ice with a 46 yard touchdown pass to Joey O’Brien, giving the Explorers a 31-13 lead with 10:17 left. However, the Hawks refused to go away without a fight, finding the end zone not even a minute later on a third touchdown catch by Harrison making the score 31-20.

La Salle College was desperately trying to seal the game, and luckily for them, their defense finally came through, coming up with both a fumble recovery and a fourth down stop that took the wind out of St. Joseph’s Prep’s sails, and propelling the Explorers to the victory.

“This was an important week to see how resilient our team was, how we were going to come out and fight,” La Salle College head coach Brett Gordon said after the game. “We talked a lot all week about how adversity is how we grow as people and certainly as athletes, and that was really the first touch of adversity we’ve had in a long time. So all we talked all week was getting back to the drawing board, playing our La Salle brand of football, and cleaning up things in all three phases of the game.”

#2 La Salle College with the victory is now 5-1 on the year, and next week they’ll be back at home against Bonner-Prendie. #4 St. Joseph’s Prep with the loss is now 2-4 on the season, and next week they’ll be on the road against Roman Catholic.

Make sure to take a look at Ryan Scipio’s photo gallery of the game.

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