Defense lifts St. Viator
A year ago, St. Viator’s defense was near the bottom in the state in points allowed.
After two games this season, the Lions rank near the top of the state after shutting down Deerfield on Friday night.
The Lions put together another stellar performance with a 21-3 victory in a nonconference football game in Deerfield.
“Since day one, it has been all about getting these kids to believe in themselves,” said St. Viator coach Brandon New, whose team shut out Foreman last week. “Defense is all about being physical. And I think we showed that tonight.”
Led by David Kujawa, Conor Kinasz, Jimmy Murphy, Hugh Masterson and Brent Piechocki, St. Viator had Deerfield’s option offense bottled up for much of the night. The Lions’ defense limited the Warriors to 102 yards of total offense, all of which came on the ground, and forced 3 turnovers.
“We really got it together,” said Kujawa, who didn’t play last year after transferring in to St. Viator. “We work on it every day. We just deliver the hits and make the offense not want to come back out.
“Our coaches really stressed this week to play with a chip on our shoulder,” said Kinasz, who switched to outside linebacker this year after playing in the middle last season.
“We wanted to go in there and just pound them so hard until they gave up. And I think we accomplished that.”
Deerfield (1-1) took advantage of a short field in the first quarter after St. Viator gambled on fourth down and came up short at its own 44. The Warriors drove to the Lions’ 5, where Michael Maki came in to kick a 22-yard field goal to make it 3-0 with 10:37 left in the first half.
St. Viator came right back on the arm of quarterback Bobby Calmeyn (9-of-21, 139 yards). Calmeyn took the Lions 66 yards on 5 plays, with 64 of that coming through the air, Kevin Hammarlund hauled in 10-yard touchdown pass from Calmeyn with 9:17 left in the first half to make it 6-3 after the conversion kick was blocked.
The Lions had plenty of opportunities to blow the game open in the first half. But 75 yards of penalties stymied the Lions’ offense which added a 25-yard field goal by Xavier Sanchez to give Viator a 9-3 advantage at the half.
With Deerfield respecting Calmeyn’s passing, the Lions went to the ground in the second half.