St. Patrick offense explodes in 55-28 win over Marian Central

WOODSTOCK — Traffic stopped St. Patrick from arriving at Marian Central on time for its scheduled kickoff on Friday night, but nothing could stop the Shamrocks’ offense from putting on an offensive clinic against the Hurricanes.

St. Patrick ran out to a 13-0 lead 4 minutes into the game and never stopped, taking down Marian Central, 55-28.

“I think we just came out stronger than they did,” St. Patrick quarterback Nick Dustin said. “We came out with four plays and two touchdowns. We were able to run the ball down their throat and we were able to throw it on them. I think today, we were just the better team.”

The Shamrocks (2-1) only needed five plays to score after they returned the opening kickoff to the Hurricane 41-yard line, with Trever Wozny scoring on a 7-yard run to give his team a 7-0 lead with 10:08 left in the first quarter. After Marian Central went three-and-out on its first possession, St. Patrick needed only one play, a 30-yard Anthony Holloway rush, to score and take a 13-0 lead with 8:02 left in the first quarter.

“They came out firing, ready to go,” Marian Central coach Liam Kirwan said. “We were slow coming out of the gate.”

Marian Central regrouped after it recovered a fumble on the St. Patrick 18 and quarterback Cale McThenia connected with Jack Schmid for an 18-yard touchdown pass to cut the lead to 13-6 with 6:24 left in the first quarter. The Hurricanes scored on their next drive after McThenia completed a 73-yard touchdown pass to Christian Bentancur to give his team its only lead of the game, 14-13 with 3:12 left in the first quarter.

St. Patrick’s offense took over and scored on its next three possessions, including a 13-yard rush from Wozny, a 14-yard pass from Dustin to Esai Senceno and a 5-yard pass to Joseph Fico.

The Shamrocks led 35-21 at halftime and out-scored the Hurricanes 20-7 in the second half to put the game away.

Dustin completed 20 of his 26 passes for 220 passing yards and three touchdowns while also rushing for one more. Wozny scored three touchdowns and finished with 72 rushing yards while Holloway rushed for 104 yards and a touchdown. Senceno had 84 receiving yards and a touchdown.

St. Patrick coach Luke Mertens was happy to see his offense reach its full potential by attacking the Hurricanes defense both on the ground and in the air.

“You have to be equally dangerous through the run game and through the pass game,” Mertens said. “I thought we did a really good job of being able to attack through the air and through the ground. That’s huge within any football game.”

Marian Central (1-2) added a touchdown in the second quarter when McThenia rushed for a 7-yard score with 4:59 left in the first half and another in the third quarter on a 33-yard completion to Bentancur from McThenia with 9:50 left in the third quarter, but the Hurricanes couldn’t remain disciplined and sustain drives in the second half.

McThenia completed 22 of his 41 pass attempts for 272 yards with three touchdowns, two interceptions and one rushing score. Bentancur finished his day with two touchdowns and 151 receiving yards.

“It’s continuing to learn from this,” Kirwan said. “We are a young team but I’m disappointed. I thought there was more there and we could’ve done more tonight.”

Marian Central will travel to Appleton, Wisc., on Friday to play Appleton West while St. Patrick will play its first CCL/ESCC Purple game when it hosts Marian Catholic on Friday.

The Shamrocks will try to make sure that the offensive explosion they had in Friday’s win will be replicated throughout the rest of the season

“This is what we’re capable of and we have to go out there every day and practice,” Dustin said. “When it comes to game day, we need to live up to this. We can’t take any days off now. We’re showing what we’re able to do and we need to be able to do that the rest of the season.”