St. Laurence ‘locked in’
Vikings gain 5th win, reach playoff eligibility with dominant performance against De La Salle
There was no denying St. Laurence on Friday night.
An unexpected bounce on the opening kickoff? No problem. Brailyn Johnson picked up the ball at his own3-yard line and returned it 69 yards.
A holding penalty that negated Darius Wilson’s 29-yard touchdown run on the Vikings’ first play from scrimmage? No sweat. NateThomasscored eight plays later to give the Vikings an early advantage.
One win shy of a fifth victory that would all but clinch a playoff berth, the battletested Vikings were all business in a 43-0 Catholic League/East Suburban Catholic Orange win over De La Salle in the regular-season finale.
“We faced a lot of adversity this year— to the point that the adversity we faced (Friday) I feel like it was nothing (next) to the adversity we’ve faced all year,” Thomas said.
Thomas scored two of his three rushing touchdowns in the first quarter as St. Laurence (5-4, 1-2) built a 22-0 lead less than 10 minutes into the game and didn’t giveDeLa Salle (3-6, 0-3) a chance to get on track.
TheVikings, whomissed the playoffs last season, had three losses by a combined six points entering Friday’s game.
“We didn’t shy away from it — we either win and go to the playoffs or lose and go to the Prep Bowl. … They were locked in all week,” St. Laurence coach Adam Nissen said. “You sawthe results from the opening kickoff.”
St. Laurence scored on its first three possessions, and the defense forced a safety on De La Salle’s first possession. With the Vikings already up 16-0, Will Waters intercepted a pass on the first play of De La Salle’s second possession, setting up Thomas’ 27-yardTDrun three plays later.
“Coach (Jermaine) Hampton, he’s our DBs coach, he told me to beat up the tight end,” Waters said. “That’s what I tried to do. … I saw him go off the line, I saw the quarterback’s arm go up and I just went with him.”
De La Sallewas held to 100 total yards. “They got a pretty powerful offense,” Nissen said.
“They’ve got some real good skills guys that we knew we had to punch them in the mouth to start early. We didn’t evenwant to let them in the game.”
Thomas finished with 125 yards rushing and added a third touchdownrun late in the third quarter. Wilson rushed for a TD and connected with Aaron Wofford for a 37-yard touchdown play on the final play of the first half.
“We’re going to run the ball all day, as much as we can. … We executed well,” Thomas said. “We eliminated the mistakes we made against Providence.”