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Seeking It Out: STAB football explodes past VES in semifinals

Photo by Bart Isley

St. Anne’s-Belfield Thomas Harry was looking for contact. He was seeking it out as he sprinted into the endzone from 15 yards out in the early stages of STAB’s 49-19 blowout win over Virginia Episcopal in the VISFL 8-man semifinals Tuesday night.

 

When your quarterback is looking for contact on the run, that’s a pretty good sign.

 

“Thomas was jacked up to play today,” said STAB coach John Blake. “He really did some great things and he really set the tone.”

 

Harry finished with 116 yards and two touchdowns on just 10 carries and threw for another 94 on 4-for-5 passing, but most importantly he set an aggressive, no-nonsense tone for the Saints that percolated through the sophomore-laden roster. STAB made short work of a Virginia Episcopal squad that it had beaten 49-21 just 12 days earlier.

 

The Saints got strong offensive performances from Gabe Decker who had 134 yards of total offense with 93 of it coming on the ground and Amani Woods who rushed for 103 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries.

 

STAB’s defense bent but didn’t break much of the first half as the offense got in gear, with some help from turnovers and big plays in big moments to shut down the VES attack. Joe Ambrosi led the Saints with nine solo tackles and Harry himself added eight stops including three for a loss. With Will Edelson getting push up the middle to create a couple of tackles for a loss of his own as well as a sack, STAB’s defense had enough push to finish off the Bishops.

 

“With that offense you can’t really simulate it because they do a lot of pulling and stuff that we just don’t do so it takes you some time to get used to it,” Blake said. “When we stopped them from running downhill and started to stretch them out a little that made a big difference.”

 

Elijah Johnson hauled in a touchdown catch for the Saints and Jackson Harry elevated and hauled in a 28-yard catch to help set up Woods’ first score. STAB jumped out to a 35-0 lead before a late VES score sent the Saints to the locker room up 35-6. The Saints got contributions from up and down a roster that has vastly improved as the year has gone on.

 

“We are so predominately sophomores — we only have like four or five juniors,” Blake said. “Soe of our younger guys have done a great job of growing up.”

 

In fact, 12 of the Saints’ 27 varsity players are sophomores and the majority of them play in key roles. While that class includes Decker and Woods who’ve carried the ball a lot in this strong finish to the season for the Saints, it also includes Jackson Harry, Johnson and Luke Antesberger who have stepped up.. With juniors like Ambrosi and Chase Holden also stepping up and senior Taylor Miller growing into an impact role for the Saints, it’s clear just how much development the Saints have undergone this year after dropping the first two games out of the gate.

 

STAB now gets a third shot at Covenant after absorbing a pair of losses to them in the regular season. The Saints fell 62-20 and then 62-13  in those meetings.

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