Saints earn first victory of junior football season

The St. Patrick Saints might have gotten a little bit of that luck for which the Irish are famous.

Unable to move the ball offensively on Thursday afternoon, a much improved Superior Collegiate Gryphons defence holding them under 50 yards, the Saints also struggled when their opponent had the ball.

But thanks to a 78-yard interception return for a touchdown by Josh Morningstar in the second quarter and an 83-yard kickoff return for another score by Eric Nisioiu, the Saints prevailed, downing the Gryphons 19-6 in junior high school football action at Fort William Stadium.

It wasn’t a pretty win, but St. Patrick coach Dave Battistel said he’ll take it, a week after being shut out 33-0 by three-time defending champion St. Ignatius.

“We’ve got a lot of things to clean up,” Battistel said. “It’s our second game and we’ve got about 70 per cent of our team that has not played a snap of football before. There were lots of little mental mistakes and penalties and things like that.

“We’re slowly, but surely, getting them cleaned up and hopefully by the time it becomes playoffs, we’ll have all these kinks worked out.”

Give credit to the Gryphons, who played well on both sides of the ball.

But a predictable offence proved to be their undoing.

The Gryphons marched the ball well between the 20s, but had a tough time earning points. Their lone touchdown – and first of the young season – came late in the second quarter, Jace Knudsen scoring from a yard out to tie the game 6-6.

But on the ensuing kickoff Nisioiu worked his magic, barreling down the field for what proved to be the winning score.

That was all the momentum the Saints needed, said linebacker Caleb Fennell.

“It was a bit of a momentum booster,” he said. “Our players got a little excited and they played the rest of the game very well.”

The Gryphons, led by Knudsen’s 86 yards on the ground, would later drive the ball inside the St. Patrick 10-yard line, but quarterback Keynan Collander’s pass up the middle to Darin Hunter was picked off by Markus Wolfe, stalling the drive.

St. Patrick quarterback Brendan Chomut finished 4-for-9 for 41 yards and a touchdown pass and led the Saints with 23 yards rushing.

St. Patrick improved to 1-1 while Superior Collegiate remained winless at 0-2.