Notre Dame comes up short on Homecoming
LAWRENCE » There were a couple of ways to look at the Notre Dame High School football team’s 27-21 loss to Paul VI on homecoming Friday night in a game often dominated by a flag-happy officiating crew.
On one hand, the Irish were outplayed for much of the game, their lack of speed on defense was often exposed and they might very well have been beaten badly if Paul VI hadn’t committed a plethora of stupid penalties.
On the other, the Irish nearly pulled off a miracle comeback against the Camden County team and suffered the very bad break of a receiver fumbling on the Paul VI 10yard line on a 44-yard play with the clock winding down in the fourth quarter.
With the tough loss, improved Notre Dame dropped to 2-2 and will be back in action next week against Trenton.
Paul VI came into this game at 1-2, but it had played some tough competition and quickly showed it meant business dy driving 70 yards in the first quarter and scoring on a 15-yard run by Charlie Wiggington.
Early in the second quarter, Notre Dame responded with a long drive of its own and went 80 yards on nine plays. Quarterback Rob Buecker drew the Irish even with a 10-yard run up the middle on a quaterback draw in a drive aided by two personal foul penalties on the Eagles.
It was here where Paul VI took control of the game by scoring the next 13 points, starting with a 6-yard sprint around right end by good-looking sophomore quarterback Nolyn McGrath to leave the score 14-7 at the half.
The only scoring in the third quarter came on a pair of short field goals by Paul VI’s outstanding kicker Henry Westerman as the Eagles continued to hurt themselves with more penalties and the Irish played some solid defense in the red zone.
Still, it didn’t seem to matter when Paul VI’s Jake Bradford took off on what would have been a 73yard touchdown run if a blocker hadn’t foolishly committed a personal foul on the other side of the field and well away from the actual play.
Given life, Notre Dame made the most of it with two fourth quarter touchdowns. The first was on a 4-yard run by Cortez Williams, who picked his game up as the evening progressed and finished with 139 yards on 22 carries.
After Paul VI reestablished a two touchdown lead on another run by McGrath, Notre Dame set up the wild finish when Michael Connolly caught a 23-yard pass from Buecker on a post pattern with 2:14 remaining. After getting off to a slow start, Buecker really heated up down the stretch and finished 8-for-13 for 118 passing yards.
Amazingly, Noter Dame then recovered the onsides kick and took over at the Paul VI 41 yard. Following a short run by Williams, Buecker hooked up with a reciever over the ymiddle for a long gain to the Paul VI 10 yard line, only to see the ball stripped away and the Eagles recover and barely survive a game it probably should have won a lot easier than it did.
Paul VI (2-2) 7 Notre Dame (2-2) 0 7 7 3 10 — 014 — 21
Wigginton 15 run (Westerman kick)
Buecker 10 run (Burns kick) McGrath 6 run (Westerman kick
Westernman 10 field goal
27
Westerman 29 field goal
Cortez Williams 4 run (Burns kick) McGrath 2 run (Westerman kick) Connolly 23 pass from Buecker (Burns kick)