Fenwick entered Tuesday’s Class 6A championship game against East St. Louis as a significant underdog.

It didn’t take long to figure out that the Friars didn’t care.

Getting an early in the game break that led to a quick touchdown, the Friars answered every East St. Louis move with a countermove. Despite losing almost every statistical category by a substantial margin, the Friars made every play they needed to in a surprising 38-28 win.

“We knew it was going to be a 12-round heavyweight fight,” Fenwick coach Matt Battaglia said. “We knew it was going to be a lot of body blows and who can withstand the most body blows. And this is a squad that is as tough as they come.”

Fenwick’s Noah Sur drilled a 31-yard field goal to break a 28-all tie with 2:45 to play.

The Friars proceeded to intercept East St. Louis’ first pass on the ensuing drive and Jake Thies ran that pick back to the East St. Louis 3-yard line. Jamen Williams plowed it in for a score from there, cementing the Fenwick victory.

“We knew that any opportunity that we could build on we had to take advantage of it and go full force,” Fenwick’s Tommy Thies said. “We got to dive right in. We’re not coming in here to lose this game and we’re going to play as hard as we can for as long as we can and see the outcome.”

It is Fenwick’s second state championship after winning the 5A title in 2021. East St. Louis fell short in its quest to win its 12th state title. The Flyers have been in the last six title games, going 3-3 in those six contests.

A quick look at the stat sheet belied the final result. East St. Louis racked up 512 yards of total offense, ran over twice as many plays from scrimmage and had 26 first downs to Fenwick’s 10.

But while Fenwick was limited in how much time they had the football (the Friars lost the time of possession battle 30:33 to 17:27), they did a lot with it when they got it. A bizarre downed punt set the stage for Fenwick’s first touchdown and despite being outgained 173-4 in the quarter in yardage they led 7-6 after a quarter.

East St. Louis took a brief lead in the second quarter, only to watch Fenwick take a lead into the halftime break after an interception once again set the Friars up with a short field.

The Flyers had all sorts of chances to score more points routinely moving the ball up and down the field, but early red zone struggles thwarted them and they got no points on two first half red zone drives. Meanwhile, Fenwick cashed in every single red zone chance it had with touchdowns (4 for 4).

Things started very well for Fenwick. The Friars forced a three and out on East St. Louis’ first possession and then a botched punt attempt gave Fenwick the ball at the East St. Louis 4-yard line.

Thies crashed in from there scoring on Fenwick’s first play from scrimmage to take a very quick 7-0 lead.

East St. Louis took a while to respond, but did with a extensive drive that ended in a short Myson Johnson-Cook touchdown run, but the Flyers missed the extra point and still trailed 7-6.

But Amir Tillman broke off a 55 yard touchdown run a few minutes later as the Flyers claimed a 13-7 lead.

However, while East St. Louis was racking up gaudy yardage numbers they were struggling to turn those opportunities into points, so when Odin Ferjak picked off a Reese Shanklin pass with less than two minutes to play in the first half, Fenwick once again quickly capitalized.

A 37-yard touchdown pass from Williams to Cameron Garrett gave Fenwick a 14-13 lead with 1:49 to play in the second quarter, despite having being outgained 263-93 to that point.

Thies ran away from the East St. Louis defense for a 74-yard TD run and 28-21 lead with 1:25 left in the third quarter. The Flyers tied it on Ahmad Coleman’s 9-yard TD run with 9:13 left.

“We could have done better,” East St. Louis coach Darren Sunkett said. “We just had way too many mistakes. They took advantage of our mistakes and capitalized on them and we just fell short.”