St. Francis beats Marmion in OT

St. Francis football fans will remember this year's homecoming game for quite some time.

But over the years they may remember different aspects since Friday night's wild 32-30 overtime win over Marmion had a little of everything. They may recall the Cadets' Sean Fichtel hauling in a great 40-yard touchdown pass that looked as if it would spoil the Spartans' homecoming with just over a minute left to play at Elmhurst College.

Or they may never forget Ryan O'Donnell's 93-yard touchdown return on the ensuing kickoff, a clutch play that sent the game into overtime tied at 24-all. Some may recall Mark Kachmer scoring the go-ahead TD in overtime or maybe his second-effort run on the 2-point conversion that proved to be the margin of victory.

But that 2-point margin of victory only came about after junior Ryan Spatz and a slew of teammates helped stuff Marmion's Matt Pircon shy of the goal line on a conversion attempt that would have set up a second OT.

"It means everything to us," said Kachmer, who ran for 115 yards and a pair of TDs and also caught a 4-yard TD pass from Jeff Reckards as St. Francis improved to 5-1 on the year. "This means a lot to our community, and it was just an awesome game."

The Cadets (2-4) scored on their first possession of the night to take an 8-3 lead after one quarter of play, but the Spartans defense stiffened and Kachmer's 4-yard TD run put the Spartans on top 10-8 at the half. A scoreless third quarter made it appear as if St. Francis might prevail in a low-scoring affair, but that was not the case.

When Reckards capped an 8 minute drive his short TD pass to Kachmer early in the fourth quarter, St. Francis led 17-8. Marmion got within 1 when Fichtel scored on a 26-yard pass from Ricky Bird and Pircon then caught a 2-point conversion pass to make the score 17-16 with 7:59 left.

The Spartans defense then came up with a big stop inside its own territory only to have the Cadets take a 24-17 lead when Bird hooked up with Fichtel again in the final minute.

That's when O'Donnell saved the day, backtracking to the 7-yard line to pull in the deep kickoff and then racing, first up the middle of the field then down the right sideline as fans and cheerleaders ran up the track with him and cheering along the way.

"We just kept our heads up the whole game," said O'Donnell, who also returned a kickoff all the way in the Spartans' season opener this fall. "They kicked it deep and I just got it and took off. I couldn't have done it without the blocking. This is just exciting, that's all I can say."

Marmion coach Dan Thorne had nice things to say about his kids' effort, but the kick return left him a little down.

"To hold Kachmer to what we did was outstanding defense," Thorne said. "I'm very proud of our team. But then we don't execute the special teams. We said to kick the ball out of bounds.

"We're a good football team. But sometimes we do things to hurt ourselves."