With such an inexperienced roster, the schedule isn’t exactly doing any favors for St. Anne’s-Belfield. On Friday night, the Saints learned the hard way why Collegiate is widely considered one of the top Division I programs in the state as the Cougars jumped out to an early lead and held off a STAB comeback, 37-14.
“It’s one of those things where yeah, we’ve got playmakers, but I hope next week we don’t lineup against giants,” said STAB coach John Blake. “That’s what we’ve been doing all year so far.”
Collegiate quarterback and University of Richmond verbal commit Jake McGee showed why he’s going to play football at the next level. The senior quarterback was next to unstoppable, particularly in the first half as he shed off pass rushers with stiff arms, rolled around in the pocket and threw the ball downfield as if it wasn’t a big deal. All four of the Cougars touchdowns came from McGee’s arm and he wound up finishing the game with 378 yards on 25 completions over 38 attempts, and also chipped in 80 yards rushing on 10 carries.
“I was just working hard,” McGee said of his performance. “The guys, they would just keep running their routes, keep working with me. There’s that connection, I know where they’re going to be and I’ll just try to make the play.”
After STAB muffed a punt return, Collegiate took control of the first half, scoring 21 points and running 38 plays from scrimmage to the Saints’ 13. And while they dominated the time of possession in the first 24 minutes of the game, the Cougars managed to do it with just the pass spreading the field with at least four or five receivers on every play.
“When you go to five receivers you try and keep the defense off balance,” said Collegiate coach Mark Paylo. “Sometimes it’s short (routes) and long, sometimes just short, sometimes just long and its tough. It requires our line to do their job.”
But things changed in the second half. Not only did quarterback Jacob Rainey start to develop a rapport with receiver Joseph Stuart who had the Cougars in man coverage almost every play, but the defense finally forced the Collegiate offense to punt or turn the ball over on downs.
We did a couple of things,” Blake said. “We were dropping eight quite a few times. We we’re just trying to do different things. We went monkey – we manned up, and came at him a couple times, and we made a few plays there.”
As a result, the Saints were able to cut the lead to 10 points midway through the fourth quarter when Stuart caught a 30-yard TD pass from Rainey followed by Willie McGhee 2-yard scoring run that capped a drive in which McGhee hauled in a 37-yard reception on a fake punt. With three minutes to play STAB attempted a field goal to cut the lead to seven points, but it was blocked. Collegiate then put the game out of reach with 13 quick points in the final three minutes of play.
“I’m proud of our guys,” Blake said. “We had an opportunity to tuck our tails and turn in at the second half and we didn’t do that. We stuck out our chest and played a little bit there.”
St. Anne’s (2-4) will host cross-town rival Covenant Friday at 7 p.m.
