ST. MARYS 14, CLARION 7

Sept. 14, 2007

By Chris Rossetti

CLARION – The 11^th time was a charm for St. Marys.

After losing its first 10 meetings to Clarion, the Dutch finally broke through the ice with a 14-7 win over the Bobcats Friday night at Clarion University’s Memorial Stadium.

“It’s nice,” St. Marys’ fourth-year head coach Joe Schlimm, who was 0-3 vs. the Bobcats since taking over the Dutch program in 2004, said. “The KSAC has been a league that we haven’t had a whole lot of success against. That speaks to the quality of football played in the conference. To get a win against a quality team, a quality program, that is great.”

For most of the night it looked like the Dutch weren’t going to get a win this time either.

Despite facing a Clarion team that was without its starting quarterback Adam Bevevino the entire second half, St. Marys, which rolled up over 300 yards of offense and 49 points on Moniteau last week, had just 158 yards of offense and no offensive touchdowns in with just under seven minutes remaining in the game. Consequently, the Dutch trailed Clarion 7-6.

But St. Marys took advantage of two crucial Clarion mistakes in the final eight minutes to pull out the win when Brian Tamburlin, who ran 19 times for 105 yards, scored on a 16-yard run with 5:53 to play.

The victory was just the fourth for St. Marys under Schlimm in games decided by 10 points or less. The Dutch came into the night just 3-10 in those games including 1-5 since the start of last season.

“This is the thing we have needed to get over the hump for three years,” Schlimm said about his team winning a close game. “This was a game tonight where we didn’t play very well, and I give Clarion a lot of credit they came ready to play, but we gutted it up and found a way to win. It came down to kids with good attitudes and good work ethics who have something invested in the program. They didn’t quit.”

Maybe as it should be, St. Marys had to deal with one more bit of adversity before sealing the victory.

The Dutch appeared to have won the game when Jeff Myers sacked Kyle Zacour, Clarion’s back-up quarterback, causing Zacour to fumble. The Dutch scrambled on top of the football deep in Bobcat territory. But Myers was called for roughing the quarterback, and Clarion was given the ball back at the St. Marys 46 with just over a minute to play.

But two plays later, Brett Quiggle picked off a Zacour pass – this turnovers counted – sealing the win.  

“That (the penalty) is part of football,” Schlimm said. “So is dealing with adversity. You have to be able to deal with it when situations happen that are beyond your control and negative. In the past, we didn’t do well in that regard. This team seems to take a different approach to that.”

Defensively, St. Marys clamped down on Clarion allowing the Bobcats just 123 yards of offense including 66 rushing yards on 32 carries. It was the fewest rushing yards for Clarion since the Bobcats ran for 25 yards in the 2000 District 9 Class A title game against Curwensville.

It was that defense that scored first for St. Marys when Jeremy Williams picked off an Adam Bevevino pass and returned it 11 yards for a touchdown. The pick came on Clarion’s first offensive play of the game.

“That was a gift,” Schlimm said. “But I wasn’t pleased with how we handled it the first quarter. We were flat and not very aggressive. In the second half we handled that a little better.”

Clarion was able to respond late in the first quarter thanks to an interception of its own.

Eric Grejda, who made 13 tackles on the night, picked off a James Swanson pass and returned it to the St. Marys 41. That set up an 8-yard touchdown pass from Bevevino to Scott Larson with five seconds left in the first quarter. Jon Kemmer’s extra point gave Clarion a 7-6 lead.

“I thought we responded big time to the early score,” Clarion head coach Larry Wiser said. “The defense rose to the challenge, and Eric had the key interception. And Adam came back after throwing the interception. A lot of kids are going to get shock by something like that. I was just so proud of my kids. We were hitting hard and taking the game to them.”

But that scoring drive was pretty much all the offense Clarion mustered on the night, and the Bobcats offense suffered a serious blow when Bevevino’s knee was hurt on defense late in the first half. The injury is believed to be at least moderately serious with Bevevino probably missing at least a few weeks.

“I don’t know at this point what the prognosis is,” Wiser said. “I have heard at least a sprain. We had to have him on defense. You put your best athletes on the field if you can.”

With Bevevino out, Zacour took over, and Clarion for the most part tried to stay to the ground game.

“Our defense was playing so well,” Wiser said. “We didn’t want to put too much on Kyle.”

The safe strategy appeared as if it might work until two mistakes midway through the fourth quarter doomed Clarion.

The first came with 8:42 left in the half when Todd Schatz punt was fielded by James Seidle at the 2-yard line when the ball was clearly rolling into the end zone for a touchback. Seidle was tackled at the Clarion 6-yard line.

“I don’t want to go into that one way or the other,” Clarion head coach Larry Wiser said about Seidle’s decision to field the punt at the 2-yard line. “It was a key play, but there were other areas where we could have won the game.”

Backed up in its own end, Clarion ran three straight plays that netted zero yards, and St. Marys took over at the Clarion 48 following a 42-yard punt by back-up punter Jon Kemmer – Bevevino is the regular punter.

It was then the Bobcats second mistake occurred when an unknown Clarion played was flagged for a late hit out of bounds after a 9-yard James Swanson pass to Mitchell Straub had put the ball at the Clarion 39. The 15-yard penalty set the Dutch up at the Clarion 24, and two Tamburlin runs gave St. Marys the lead.

“I didn’t see what happened,” Wiser said. “We made a penalty there at an inopportune time.”

NOTES – The seven points marked the second straight week the Bobcats were held to seven points. It is the first time since midway through the 2002 season that Clarion has failed to reach double digits in consecutive weeks … St. Marys is 2-1 for the first time since starting 4-0 in 1986 according to St. Marys graduate, current Smethport assistant coach and former D9Sports.com contributor Jesse Cheatle … Williams hurt his ankle later in the game and was taken to the hospital for X-Rays. No report on his condition was available at the end of the game

ST. MARYS 14, CLARION 7

Score by Quarter

St. Marys 6 0 0 8 – 14

Clarion 7 0 0 0 – 7

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

SM – Jeremy Williams 11 interception return (Kick blocked), 9:10

C – Scott Larson 8 pass from Adam Bevevino (Jon Kemmer kick), 0:05

Fourth Quarter

SM – Brian Tamburlin 16 run (Tamburlin run), 5:53

SM  C

First Downs            12        8

Rushes-Yards         43-166 32-66

Passing Yards         34        57

Passing: Comp-Att-Int       4-6-1    6-11-2

Total Yardage        200      123

Fumbles-Lost         0-0       1-0

Penalties-Yards      7-59     2-20

Punts-Avg. 4-38     6-39.8

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing – St. Marys: Brian Tamburlin 19-105, Todd Schatz 10-37, Mitchell Straub 6-32, Jeremy Williams 2-4, James Swanson 5-(-11), Team 1-(-1). Clarion: James Seidle 19-57, Jon Kemmer 7-12, Adam Bevevino 1-3, Jake Fleeger 2-2, Dan Walter 1-0, Kyle Zacour 2-(-8).

Passing – St. Marys: James Swanson 4-for-6, 34 yards, 1 interception. Clarion: Kyle Zacour 4-for-8, 41 yards, 1 interception. Adam Bevevino 2-for-3, 16 yards, 1 touchdown, 1 interception.

Receiving – St. Marys: Mitchell Straub 2-25, Todd Schatz 2-9. Clarion: Scott Larson 2-29, Jake Fleeger 2-23, Ryan Smith 1-11, James Seidle 1-(-6).

Interceptions – St. Marys: Jeremy Williams, Brett Quiggle. Clarion: Eric Grejda.