St. Joe’s Prep gets sweet revenge in a 35-7 win over La Salle, advancing to the District 12 6A championship

Written by: Joseph Santoliquito on Saturday, November 13th, 2021. Follow Joseph Santoliquito on Twitter.

It could have been an unpleasant reminder that was collectively—and carefully—jotted on an index card tucked away on a shelf.

St. Joe’s Prep knew it would face Catholic League Red Division rival La Salle again. The Hawks knew that they had to bring their best and had not been playing up to their traditional standards this season, and it bothered them.

It didn’t take long for The Prep to pound away the remnants of its early-October loss to the Explorers with an emphatic 35-7 victory over La Salle in the Catholic League 6A championship at Penn’s historic Franklin Field on Saturday.

The 28-point difference even hides how one-sided this game was. La Salle’s stands were emptying by halftime.

Prep (8-2) now moves on to play Philadelphia Public League 6A champion Northeast next weekend, while La Salle’s season comes to a close at 9-2.

“We have unbelievable coaches who put so much time in, and the kids put so much time in and we practiced with a purpose this week,” Hawks’ coach Tim Roken said. “We got kicked in the teeth six weeks ago here. Our players weren’t happy with how they were playing, and they were the ones who looked at themselves in the mirror and did something about it.”

They did.

Much of what Prep did was based on the dominance of its defense and offensive line play, behind left tackle Brad Harris, left guard George Reinhard, center Julian Cervantes, right guard Lakeem Steele, and right tackle Alec Treadway. On occasion, the Hawks would deploy tackle Charlie Backe as an extra tight end.

“La Salle beat us here a month ago and we really let that burn,” Treadway said. “We were the first (Prep) team to lose to La Salle in years. We let Abdul Carter (La Salle’s Penn State-bound linebacker) have way too many tackles in the first game. We didn’t attack him very well, so our big talk this week was blocking in space and getting to the linebackers.

“We’ll let this sit for 24 hours and we’ll get right back to work.”

Cervantes admitted the Hawks have not put a complete game together this season.

“We were not pleased with how we’ve been playing, and our focus was to do our job and trust the guy next to us to do their job,” Cervantes said. “We still have a lot of work to do. We still haven’t played our best football yet.”

Defensively, junior middle linebacker Josiah Trotter was all over the ball, like he usually is, and senior defensive end Rocco Nicholl, junior defensive end  James Heard, senior defensive lineman Dan Daly, sophomore linebacker Nick McGlynn-Saurez, freshman safety Tony Sacca and junior special teams demon Owen Garwood never gave La Salle a chance to breathe.

La Salle played arguably its worst game of the season, which couldn’t have come at the worst time. The Explorers turned the ball over twice, had a punt blocked, and made mind-boggling errors that they did not have all season.

In the closing seconds of the first half, and La Salle primed to score for the first time, a miscommunication led to an errant snap at the Prep two-yard line as La Salle’s offensive players were in motion. The ball dribbled out to the Hawks’ 37, ending the threat.

In the final seconds of the third quarter, as Prep was about to boot a 31-yard field on fourth-and-five from the La Salle 14, an Explorers’ offsides penalty gave Prep a fresh set of downs.

The Explorers had a great season, but Saturday afternoon did not allow them to reflect just yet.

This is not how they envisioned their season-ending.

“It was a good season, but right now it’s disappointing,” Explorers coach John Steinmetz said. “Prep is a good football team and we got off to a slow start, and we gave up a touchdown, followed by a fumble recovery and a blocked punt. They’re too good of a team to come back on down 21-0.”

The game was essentially over by halftime.

Prep went in with a 35-0 lead, holding La Salle to 51 yards of total offense and amassing five negative plays for minus-68 yards.

By the time the Explorers got their initial first down of the game, with 1:57 left in the first quarter, they were down 21-0.

The Hawks’ defense took the October loss personally. Prep suffocated La Salle in everything it tried. Before the Explorers got a first down, they had minus-11 yards of total offense.

The Hawks took the opening kickoff and created a theme for the rest of the game. Prep traveled 80 yards over eight plays, taking a 7-0 lead when senior back-up quarterback Dane Picariello hit David Washington with a 17-yard pass and a 7-0 lead with 9:13 left in the first quarter.

That lead quickly expanded to 14-0 when Heard scooped up a fumble for a 22-yard score and a 14-0 Prep lead with 4:12 left in the first quarter. Then in a blink, it seemed, it was 21-0 after Garwood’s blocked punt resulted in Kahseim Phillips’ two-yard scoring run with 3:03 left in the first.

Prep wasn’t through.

Nor was Phillips, who finished with a game-high 127 yards rushing on 11 carries.

He went almost untouched on the seventh play of the second quarter for a 62-yard touchdown, followed by a La Salle three-and-out, which Prep responded to with a five-play, 57-yard drive, culminating in Trotter’s first-ever TD reception, a four-yard toss with 4:51 left in the half.

That was it.

The final numbers didn’t speak volumes—they screamed them. Take away Sam Brown’s cosmetic 85-yard touchdown run with 2:17 left to play, and the La Salle offense could only muster 86 yards of total offense to Prep’s 292.

Scoring Summary

St. Joe’s Prep (8-2) 21 14 0 0-35

La Salle (9-2) 0 0 0 7-7

1st Quarter

SJP – David Washington 17 pass from Dane Picariello (Antonio Chadha kick), 9:13

SJP – James Heard 22 fumble return (Chadha kick), 4:12

SJP – Kahseim Phillips 2 run (Chadha kick), 3:03

2nd Quarter

SJP – Phillips 62 run (Chadha kick), 8:31

SJP – Josiah Trotter 4 pass from Picariello (Chadha kick), 4:51

4th Quarter

La – Sam Brown 85 run (Sturla kick), 2:17

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has been covering high school football since 1992 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter @JSantoliquito. Follow EasternPAFootball.com on Twitter @EPAFootball.

Follow EasternPAFootball.com on Twitter @EPAFootball

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