Days later, STAB gets its win

By Ryan Yemen Daily Progress correspondent
Published: September 29, 2008

It’s somewhat unusual to have two teams take the field with fresh legs to start the fourth quarter, but such was the case between St. Anne’s-Belfield and St. Christopher’s on Monday afternoon.
This past Friday the two schools agreed to finish the final 13:49 of their game on Monday because of lightning.
Up by nine, St. Anne’s finished the job it started three days ago by defeating its longtime rival 27-16.
“Most of the time as a coach, and I’m sure it’s true for a player, you play a game in one night and you can end it and it’s behind you,” said STAB coach John Blake. “Here we had to wait three days. So we fixed the things we were doing wrong. We didn’t change plays. We just fixed them and we did a great job.”
When the game was initially postponed, St. Christopher had all the momentum as they had cut the deficit from 16 points to nine, and had a drive going into STAB territory.
That’s where the game resumed. Whatever momentum St. Christopher’s had began to fade when STAB forced a three and out. The nail in the coffin came shortly after when St. Anne’s put together a 99-yard scoring drive.
Aaron Clark paved the way for St. Anne’s on the ground. The running back finished the game with 180 yards on 28 carries.
“He’s got it all,” Blake said. “I watched [Jacquizz Rodgers] from Oregon State the other night and Aaron reminds me a lot of him. He’s strong kid, short kid. You don’t ever get a good hit on him.”
Clark was a first down machine in the first two quarters of the game. When St. Christopher stopped him in the third quarter, the STAB offense stalled. In the final quarter on Monday, Clark ran better than he had all game.
“Coach was calling good plays and I just tried to do my best.” Clark said. “We’ve only beat them one time since 1999, so this meant a lot to us.”
In the red zone, St. Anne’s caught the defense cheating by faking hard on the run.
As a result senior quarterback Howie Long found Alex Asher for a 17-yard touchdown to give STAB all the insurance it needed.
“They were committing nine in the box and we were setting it up,” Blake said. “Howie gave a great fake and we knew that we could get Asher down the middle.”
St. Christopher marched down the field quickly and scored and attempted an onside kick but failed.
“We had 13 minutes of football to play,” said St. Christopher coach Paul Paladino. “It’s kind of hard to get re-invigorated and get excited about where you are. You’ve got to make plays and you can’t give up a 99-yard drive and you can’t turn the ball over.”
With just over a minute left, any chances of a St. Christopher comeback were dashed when running back Kurt Fleming fumbled inside the St. Anne’s 20-yard line.
Fleming, a transfer from Louisa County, finished the game with 135 yards on 23 carries.
St. Anne’s travels to VES on Friday at 4 p.m.