St. Bede capitalizes on turnovers, builds big lead in win over Kewanee

PERU – In only 18 seconds, the St. Bede football team took control of Friday’s Three Rivers Conference Mississippi Division opener.

The Bruins capped a 16-play, 77-yard drive with a 2-yard touchdown run by John Brady with 2:41 left in the first quarter.

Kewanee fumbled on its first possession of the ensuing drive, and St. Bede’s Ben Burke pounced on it to give the Bruins the ball on the Boilermakers’ 21-yard line. On St. Bede’s next play, Brady connected with Ben Wallace for a 21-yard TD pass with 2:23 left in the first.

“It’s big when you can come out and score then get the ball back and you can score again,” Brady said. “It’s a big momentum booster.”

The Bruins led by at least two touchdowns the rest of the way en route to a 34-20 victory at the Academy to move to 3-0.

“We came out strong, got the offense going,” Brady said. “People were making plays. The line was giving me time. The defense held them to one score the first half. It got a little close at the end, but we never let them get closer than two scores.

“We got it going from the beginning and never really stopped.”

The Bruins were held to a three-and-out on their first possession of the game, but after forcing Kewanee to punt, St. Bede put its long drive together with an effective short passing game.

On the 16-play scoring drive, Brady completed 7 of 8 passes ranging from 3 to 13 yards.

Kewanee fumbled again on its next drive, ending a possession in which the Boilermakers drove 38 yards on 11 plays, and Callan Hueneburg recovered for the Bruins. St. Bede capitalized again, driving 67 yards on 11 plays, capping the drive with a 2-yard TD run by Hueneburg.

After the Boilermakers got on the board on a 19-yard run by quarterback Brady Clark with 27.5 seconds left in the half, the Bruins were able to respond.

Brady hit Hueneburg for a 36-yard completion on the first play, and after three straight incompletions, St. Bede faced fourth-and-5 from the Kewanee 11 with half a second left. With time expiring in the first half, Brady found Wallace in the end zone for an 11-yard TD and a 28-7 halftime lead.

St. Bede then forced a three-and-out to start the second half and scored on a 1-yard run by Hueneburg with 8:17 left in the third to go up 34-7.

Hueneburg’s TD was set up by a 44-yard reception by Wallace down to the 1 on a play in which the ball tipped off the hands of St. Bede’s Connor Brown before Wallace hauled it in.

“We give up a touchdown with [27] seconds to go in the half knowing we had to kick off to them, and man, that was a critical score for us there with time expiring in the first half,” St. Bede coach Jim Eustice said. “Then we held them on defense and went down and scored and made it 34-7, and it was pretty much game in hand at that point.”

Brady finished 23 of 34 for 269 yards and two touchdowns while running for 40 yards and a TD.

Wallace caught eight passes for 136 yards and two scores, while Tom Makransky made nine receptions for 47 yards. Hueneburg had 38 receiving yards and 7 rushing yards with two TDs.

Defensively, the Bruins held Kewanee to 109 rushing yards and forced three turnovers – two fumbles and an interception by Ryan Brady, who has picked off a pass in all three games.

“Our run defense was real good,” Eustice said. “We caused a few turnovers. We work on that, trying to hold the guy up and strip. It worked a couple times tonight, and we were able to capitalize and get a big lead early.”

St. Bede travels to Newman (2-1) in Week 4.