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St. Francis nearly knocks off Brother Rice

St. Francis senior Michael Shaw is known as a formidable target as a receiver.

Against Brother Rice Friday, Shaw unveiled his first pass in a football game - an electrifying 64-yard option touchdown throw to a wide-open Matt Hanson.

"We've really been keeping that in our back pocket for a special game like this," the 6-foot-3 Shaw said. "It just worked out perfectly. It was the spark that we needed at the time."

The Class 5A Spartans pulled all of the stops and never relented against their heavily favored Class 8A opponents. They even led at halftime before falling 35-29 in front of a homecoming crowd in Wheaton.

St. Francis (2-2) sure didn't look like an underdog, taking a 22-21 lead into halftime after a 2-point conversion from quarterback Clint Bobowski to Nate Zito just after the two connected on a 20-yard TD pass.

Brother Rice (3-1), coming off a huge upset of Loyola Academy, countered with two unanswered touchdowns to finally gain control. Shaw caught a 31-yard TD pass from Bobowski with 16.6 seconds left.

"We didn't think we were underdogs coming in. We knew the talent on our team and how had we all play," Bobowski said. "I think we showed a lot of people we can hang in and beat any team that we play against."

Bobowski did some nice passing himself. He threw for 326 yards and 3 TDs, two of them to Zito, with 3 interceptions.

With senior captain, starting running back and homecoming king Steven Fassnacht now out for the season with a broken ankle suffered last week against Marmion, the Spartans had 58 passing plays and 14 runs Friday.

"I don't think anybody really gave us a chance, except our team. That's what we kept talking about all week," St. Francis coach Mike Fitzgerald said.

"We've been practicing that (option pass) for a couple of weeks and kind of waiting for the right time to hit it. We told these kids we were going to leave everything out there. Definitely, it got the momentum going for us. We just couldn't get that spark in the second half."

The Spartans were on the verge of increasing their lead early in the third quarter when they recovered a muffed punt at their 43. They reached the Crusaders' 17 but then turned the ball over on downs.

Four plays later, 6-1 sophomore Ricky Smalling caught a 70-yard TD bomb from Austin Alarcon to put the Crusaders ahead for good at 28-22.

"That was a big play," Brother Rice coach Brian Badke said. "We've got a couple of big-play guys and for them to execute, that was definitely the turning point of the game."

Brother Rice fed the Spartans a heavy diet of Northern Illinois recruit Marcus Jones and Smalling. Jones rushed for 171 yards and 3 TDs, and Smalling had 147 receiving yards and another TD catch of 25 yards.

"I know how hard these kids have worked in the off-season and we expected to win that football game," Fitzgerald said. "You saw it. They played every single play. They left everything out on that field. That's what you really hope for as a coach."

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