Fortney, St. Bede have a day

MANLIUS – Tyreke Fortney had a day for the St. Bede Bruins on Saturday.

The junior running back scored four touchdowns, three receiving and one rushing, to lead the Bruins to a 35-16 victory over the Bureau Valley Storm.

When asked if he ever had a four-touchdown day before, Fortney grinned and said he didn’t think so.

“It feels great,” said Fortney, who was responsible for all of quarterback Braden Damerell’s passing stats (6 receptions, 173 yards) and rushed for 42 yards on four attempts.

Fortney got things going with a 53-yard TD catch from Damerell at 5:03 mark of the first quarter.

He had a two more TD catches from Damerell, the first for 11 yards at 7:13 of the second quarter and then took an 81-yard TD catch to the house with 2:11 left to run the Bruins lead to 28-7 at halftime.

For good measure, Fortney added a 23-yard run as time expired in the third quarter to stretch the Bruins lead to a 35-7.

Fortney said it was important the Bruins bounced back strong after last week’s 35-6 loss to Newman.

“Coming off that loss to Newman, we didn’t want redemption, but we just wanted to prove something, that we’re not going to crumble after a loss. That’s what we came out here to do today,” Fortney said.

Now 4-1, assistant coach Bill Booker pointed out to the team after the game that in a normal season, they would become playoff eligible with a fifth win in next week’s season finale at Orion.

“We took our lumps the last couple years, but we literally had everybody coming back on offense. That experience is huge in high school football,” St. Bede head coach Jim Eustice said. “We were really disappointed we didn’t get an opportunity last fall. Our kids have hung in there. I’m really, really happy for these seniors. They got memories to take with them the rest of their lives.”

“We want to do it for our seniors. We never knew if we were going to have a season. So, yeah, we wanted to do it for them. Something to remember,” Fortney said.

Bureau Valley coach Mat Pistole pointed to the Bruins being a team his club could emulate.

“St. Bede’s a really experienced team. They’ve been playing together for awhile. They’ve had their lumps the last couple of years and are finally able to see [success], and I hope we’re in that position in the near future, too,” Pistole said. “That’s what I hope we gain this season and take it in to the next season.”

Bureau Valley, which finishes the spring season at 0-4, made it a 14-7 game early in the second quarter when junior quarterback Adam Johnson passed to classmate Layton Britt, who raced for a 65-yard touchdown.

Storm senior Evan Eckberg capped his career with a 3-yard touchdown run with 6 1/2 minutes left in the game.

Pistole said it was very important for his team to score a couple of touchdowns in their last game. The Storm also got some bonus points from foreign exchange student Alessandro Bertolani, a soccer player in his native Italy, who booted a 24-yard field goal with only 27 seconds left in the game.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve scored that many,” Pistole said. “To get Alle out there, he’s been an absolute joy to have on the team. I’m glad we got him a field. We tried to get him the ‘Alle Special’ [touchdown on conversion]. We’ve been running that since Day 1.”

Pistole said it also was nice to see the Storm play a clean game.

“We didn’t make any mistakes, which is the biggest thing that is different from the last couple weeks,” Pistole said. “We’d have a drive going and we’d fumble the ball, have a bad penalty, and today we didn’t make any mistakes. Unfortunately, we didn’t make enough plays to make it happen. But I thought we got a couple of turnovers, we forced some fumbles. I felt like the kids played hard, but we came up a little bit short.

“Hats off to them. They played hard and executed well. They’re definitely improved from Game 1 to Game 4. Congrats to them,” Eustice said.

Eustice said it is going to be a crazy week before the Bruins take the field again, with track meets and baseball games going on and wrestling starting up, but the St. Bede coaching staff works together to make it happen for the kids.

“It’s just crazy times, but we’re having a ball,” Eustice said.