Reardon leads high-scoring Ursuline past Warren G. Harding
Trending
WARREN -- Ursuline's offense is a different animal with sophomore quarterback Patrick Reardon taking snaps, and the Irish showed why on Friday night.
Ursuline put up almost 450 total yards of offense, pulling away from Warren G. Harding in the second half for a 40-7 victory over the Raiders at Mollenkopf Stadium.
"We have multiple offensive things. Ethan [Sandusky] brings something good to the table, and so does Patrick," Irish head coach Tony Stephens said of the quarterbacks. "Patrick came out today -- he was hurt last week -- and just picked up where he left off. Offense opened up good. We were able to complete some passes and we were able to run. We knew we could run on them, and that was the main goal. Patrick came out on fire too, throwing the football."
Reardon completed 19-of-28 of his passes for 202 yards with one touchdown and one interception. About 160 of his passing yards came in the first half.
On the ground, Vinnie Fecko put in a workhorse-effort, carrying the ball 23 times for 186 yards and three touchdowns. Zalin Strother added 56 rushing yards and a touchdown to give the Irish nearly 250 total rushing yards.
"He plays offense, defense and he's the type of guy that ain't going down with one hit," Stephens said of Fecko. "Vinnie, just as his motor gets going, he just gets better and better. Then you got Zalin coming in there, he's a slicier running back that would make you miss and things like that. They complement each other very well, and either one of them gets the job done any time."
It took three plays for Ursuline to strike first, as Fecko carried the ball three times on the game's opening drive. Those runs went for 4 and 56 yards, before Fecko sprinted 20 yards into the end zone on the third play.
After the Ursuline defense produced a three-and-out, Reardon and the offense went to work. He hit Jordan Steiginga for a 7-yard touchdown pass on fourth down, which gave the Irish the early 14-0 lead.
Harding went three-and-out again on its next drive, and Ursuline capitalized. On the second-to-last play of the first quarter, Strother broke through the Raiders' defense for a 6-yard touchdown run. After a missed PAT, that gave the Irish a 20-0 advantage.
Harding's defense stepped it up in the second quarter, however, and so did the offense.
A five-minute drive culminated with Raiders quarterback James Jones finding Lavez Powell in the back of the end zone for a 23-yard touchdown to put Harding on the board.
Both teams proceeded to turn the ball over on downs on their ensuing possessions after lengthy drives, and Ursuline took a 20-7 advantage into the locker room at halftime.
"We settled down [in the second quarter], but we can't give up three touchdowns in the first quarter, plain and simple," Harding head coach Matt Richardson said. "Against anybody, any good team that does that, it's hard because then you're behind the eight-ball."
The Raiders had a chance to make it a one-possession game on their opening drive of the second half. Harding drove all the way to the 2-yard line, but the Irish came up with the goal-line stand to force another turnover on downs.
"We just didn't execute, plain and simple," Richardson said. "You get the ball down to the 2-yard line, you gotta get it in. We tried the quarterback sneak, and we fumbled the snap. So that kind of set us back, limited us to what we could do."
Despite Reardon getting picked off by Harding's Joseph Daniel on Ursuline's next drive, that goal-line stop proved to be a turning point in the contest, as the Irish pulled away from there.
"My defensive staff ... I don't think they were panicking at all. I didn't panic at all," Stephens said. "We told them if we're able to slow them down in the third quarter and stop them, then we'll turn around and we'll score.
"We had something to prove to people that we're back. We're Ursuline football. We're a very young team, but these guys are just getting better and better every week. So when down on the 1-yard line, we may bend, but we're not going to break, and that's what they did."
Fecko added a 1-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter, and Ray Javey returned a punt 63 yards for another touchdown shortly thereafter, which gave the Irish a 34-7 lead.
Ursuline put the exclamation point on the victory with Fecko's third and final touchdown run of the night with about five minutes left.
Next up, the Irish (3-2) will go across the border to visit Farrell (Pa.) next week, while Harding (2-3) will stay at home to host Toledo Scott next Friday.
"We've got a next-man-up mentality," Richardson said. "We got a whole second half of the season to fix this thing."