Benet gets win it really needed
A 2-touchdown deficit late in the third quarter meant nothing to Benet's football team.
The Redwings couldn't afford to let it mean anything.
Knowing the importance of Saturday's East Suburban Catholic Conference game against St. Patrick in Chicago, the Redwings willed themselves to a 30-28 victory at Hanson Stadium behind a 20-point, seven-minute burst spanning from near the end of the third quarter to midway through the fourth.
With the gauntlet of ESCC showdowns awaiting them, the Redwings considered this a must win.
"It was a hard-fought win, but I'm glad we got it because we needed this one," said Benet running back Marty Dosen. "We really do have that desire to win. We just needed to bring it out, and we did a great job of doing that in the second half. We all had fire in our stomachs."
Benet (3-1, 1-1), which trailed 15-3 and 22-10, led 30-22 with just less than six minutes left in the game after converting Robert Bordignon's interception into Dosen's 28-yard touchdown run.
After the teams exchanged punts, St. Patrick (2-2, 0-2) stunned the Redwings with a 51-yard touchdown pass from Zachary Stephens to Trevor Hamilton with two minutes left. The game-tying 2-point attempt, however, was stuffed by John D'Angelo when he stopped Shamrocks running back Nikolas Childress well short of the goal line.
The Redwings recovered the onside kick and Dosen - who carried the ball 41 times for 189 yards - ran for a key first down to help seal the win.
"We didn't play well in the first half, but our team kept fighting," Bordignon said. "We knew we were a better team than them. We knew we had it in us. We bounced back in the second half after a tough start. We came out with a win, which is all that really matters."
Ryley Guay's 51-yard field goal and Charlie Weidenbach's 5-yard touchdown run kept the Redwings close, but they still trailed St. Patrick until the fourth quarter. A Benet fumble came right back to the Redwings when Weidenbach recovered a fumble, and on the next play Jack Sznajder threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Will O'Grady to finally put Benet ahead at 23-22.
Sznajder completed 20 of 30 passes for 236 yards, including an 18-yard scoring strike to Bordignon, who caught 12 passes for 95 yards. The two no-huddle teams combined for 157 plays and 808 total yards of offense.
"They stepped it up and I really think they had a little determination to get it done," said Benet coach Pat New. "We've just got to step up and find a way to put a full game together."
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