Loria helps Marmion rally past Benet

Marmion coach Adam Guerra regularly tells his players that the moment chooses them as opposed to them getting to choose the moment.

In the case of Friday’s homecoming game against Benet, the moment chose senior defensive back Ryan Loria. On the final play of a tie game, he picked off an Alex Mitchell pass for a 60-yard touchdown that he dove over the pylon to complete, and Marmion (3-3) pulled off a 26-20 shocker after Benet (2-4) came back from 14 down in the fourth quarter.

“I saw them drop back,” said Loria. “And I just jumped that pick, and I just kept going. My boys blocked for me in the end, and I just took it.”

For Guerra, it was the culmination of what he’d seen since he arrived at Marmion during Loria’s freshman year.

“It’s what you dream of as a coach getting to watch these young men grow up and achieve things like that,” Guerra said. “It’s the best feeling in the world.”

On the first drive of the game, which took up more than half of the first quarter, Marmion’s Colin McEniry commanded a mixture of handoffs as well as three passes for 51 yards – all of them featuring Aidan Miller on the receiving end – before running the ball in on the goal line.

By contrast, Benet went with a hurry-up offense in the second quarter en route to its first points. They vindicated that strategy when Mitchell threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to tight end Tyler Lakis, tying the game at 7.

With 12.7 seconds left before halftime, there was confusion as to whether McEniry had thrown a 14-yard touchdown pass to Miller or the ball had been intercepted by Dean Meah. After the officials huddled, it was determined that Miller had completed the catch before bobbling it, and the Cadets had a 14-7 lead.

The Redwings were fortunate to have any points on the board after losing a fumble in the first half that was recovered by William Wilde, though nothing came of that moment.

Benet lost a fumble early in the third quarter, and Marmion’s Jacob McCord recovered. McEniry made Benet pay with a fourth-down conversion, followed by his second touchdown pass to Miller from 3 yards away.

Mitchell threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Giovanni Sanderlin, making it a one-score game with 4:44 remaining. Then, after forcing a three-and-out, they set up on the Cadets’ 45 with 2:42 left.

A drive that lasted just over three-and-a-half minutes ended with a 2-yard touchdown run by Lawler. The game was tied at 20 with 1:11 on the clock, though Benet coach James White argued that shouldn’t even have been necessary.

“We played about six good minutes of football,” White said. “They played harder than us. That was the end of the story. So we just gotta start our game fast and finish fast.”