NO LETDOWN THIS TIME AS NO. 4 ST. JOSEPH (MONT.) ROLLS PAST NO. 9 DON BOSCO

The St. Joseph (Mont.) coach knew last week's loss to Bergen Catholic, in which his team surrendered 14 unanswered points in the second half in a four-point loss, had the potential to tear his team apart at the midway point of the season. The Green Knights, however, weren't about to let that happen. In perhaps St. Joseph's most complete game of the year, the fourth-ranked Green Knights rolled past No. 9 Don Bosco Prep on the road Friday night en route to a 31-10 win. Former Don Bosco Prep player Gavin Sharkey caught two touchdown passes from QB Michael Alaimo, S Connor Grieco supplied a 45-yard pick-six in the first half and sophomore RB Audric Estime broke a key 61-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter as St. Joseph moved to 5-2. "I was nervous [about how we'd respond from last week]," Hoffmann said. "It's a rivalry game. It means everything to these guys. To put it out there the way we did and come up short, it could cause a problem. But this is a resilient group of guys. We've got good kids, a great senior group with some young guys sprinkled in and, when you have the kind of leadership we have, it showed. It showed this week in practice. It showed tonight. ... We tried to put together a complete game and got as close as we have in a while." St. Joseph limited the mental mistakes, costly penalties and untimely turnovers that have plagued it in its lone two losses this year to American Heritage (Fla.) and Bergen Catholic. It was sharp in all three phases Friday night and, this week, it was St. Joseph closing out the game on a 14-0 fourth-quarter run after Don Bosco Prep cut the deficit to seven, at 17-10, late in the third on a Christian Dremel touchdown catch. "There's no excuse when you're up two scores not to finish the game," Hoffmann said. "This week in practice, we didn't feel like it the Xs and Os weren't there. It was about execution and we had to get back to the small things. We worked hard this week and sometimes when you have a hard week, it pays off with a big win." After forcing a quick three-and-out to open the game, St. Joseph (Mont.) quickly marched 33 yards, down to the DBP 15, before settling for a 32-yard field goal from Angelo Guglielmello to take a 3-0 lead with 6:43 left in the first quarter. Following Don Bosco Prep’s second straight three-and-out, St. Joseph went 40 yards in seven plays, capped by a 5-yard touchdown pass from Alaimo to Sharkey with 2:23 left in the opening quarter to put the Green Knights ahead, 10-0. We had to finish it off this week," said Sharkey, who transferred from Don Bosco to St. Joseph last year. "We had Bergen [Catholic] last week. Up 10. Got a big touchdown run at the end of the first half. But we didn't execute after halftime. We didn't run well. We didn't pass well. We got gassed on defense. It feels good [to score twice], but at the end of the day, we just wanted to win. We've got to win in October to set us up for November. That's the message. And we've got to take it November all the way to the state championship. That's what the plan is." Grieco, a Rutgers commit, provided fireworks later in the first half when he picked off Don Bosco Prep QB Jake Tarentino and raced 45 yards for a touchdown with 4:49 left in the second quarter. he pick-six put St. Joseph ahead, 17-0, and was part of a nightmarish first half from Don Bosco Prep in which the Ironmen offense ran six plays that went for negative yards (2 TFLs from Smith Vilbert and Frankie Monte, one each from Elijuwan Mack and Matt Gibney), another three runs for no gain, one intentional grounding, eight incompletions, four punts, four completed passes and the interception returned for a TD. Don Bosco Prep, which took No. 2 St. Peter's Prep to overtime last week before falling, 26-23, finally got on the board with 1:09 left before halftime when kicker Guy Fava connected on a 31-yard field goal as the Ironmen went into the break down, 17-3. They made it a one-score game with their best offensive series of the night late in the third, going 67 yards in 12 plays, capped by an 18-yard touchdown pass from Tarentino to Dremel with 13.9 left in the quarter. St. Joseph, however, responded virtually immediately when Estime took the first play of the fourth quarter 61 yards to the house to put the Green Knights back up two scores, 24-10. It was the highlight of a highly productive night for Estime, who finished with 15 carries for 130 yards and the score. St. Joseph would cap the scoring on the night with 4:54 left in the fourth when Alaimo found Sharkey on a 29-yard touchdown strike. "This win shows that we're a brotherhood," Sharkey said. "That we love each other as a unit and we'll always stick together. The seniors after the game last week had a meeting saying, 'We can't let this game tear us apart.' What we can do, though, is let it be the best thing to ever happen to us, man up, get together and ride this thing out to a state championship." Despite playing the majority of snaps in the second half, four-star RB Jalen Berger did not receive one carry in the second half. Kyle Monangai, instead, received 10 carries after halftime, while Berger attempted one pass on a trick play (incomplete) and made one 9-yard reception. Berger carried three times for negative-three yards on Don Bosco's first three possessions and completed one pass for 16 yards as the Ironmen fell to 3-4 on the year and 0-9 against 'Big 6' schools since the start of 2017. "Jalen is one of the most special talents we've seen in a long time," Hoffmann said. "I'd be lying if I said we didn't sit in the office all week figuring out how not to let No. 3 get his things going. And, by the way, No. 2 [Monangai] is pretty damn good, too. We focused as best we could to try and take them out of the mix, but it's hard to stop one and not the other. We had to figure out a way to try and do it to both."

NO LETDOWN THIS TIME AS NO. 4 ST. JOSEPH (MONT.) ROLLS PAST NO. 9 DON BOSCO

Photo Credit: Don Bosco Prep Athletics