On October 31st, Halloween night, Jesuit competed in their homecoming football game against the MacArthur Cardinals. Unfortunately, the Rangers struck out against the Cardinals after going on a three game win streak, losing 69-30 in Postell stadium.
Jesuit started off driving down the field, only to come up short on a third and long, and was forced to punt. But, Jesuit’s quarterback, Bo Schneider ’15, impressively pinned MacArthur on their own 1 yard line. Jesuit’s outstanding defense didn’t give MacArthur an inch, and forced a 3 and out, handing Jesuit great field position. Jesuit cashed in their hard work on defense and scored a touchdown on their possession with an unbelievable catch in the back of the end zone by Garret Amy ’15. MacArthur, unwilling to allow Jesuit to keep its 6-0 lead, scored on the following possession with a 15 yard bootleg pass.
In the second quarter, the Cardinals began to ramp up their game offensively and started off with a scoring drive. Following their touchdown, the Cardinals picked off Jesuit’s top notch Quarterback Bo Schneider ’15, setting them up for another touch down to go up 21-6. However, Jesuit would not go away, for Schneider led the team 57 yards down the field for a Jesuit touch down. In retaliation, MacArthur’s Artiss Henderson scored yet again on the ground with just under a minute to play in the 2nd half. Just 18 seconds of play later, Henderson’s hard running and evasiveness earned him another touch down after Bo Schneider threw his second interception of the night. Although the cardinals had some momentum going for them, Jesuit slowed it down with a field goal in the closing seconds of the half to put them at 17-35.
MacArthur was not about to let up in the second half, scoring off of the first play of the half following the kickoff. Artiss Henderson ran 40 yards for his fourth touchdown of the night. Although down by 25, Jesuit’s never-give-up mentality allowed them to bounce back on the next drive where Bo Schneider completed a nice stop and go pass to Peter Lynch ’15 for 6. On the following drive, Jesuit played well defensively, nearly forcing MacArthur to punt, but MacArthur converted a third and long and eventually scored. By the end of the third quarter, MacArthur led Jesuit 56-30.
MacArthur proved themselves to be the better team of the night in the fourth quarter, and held Jesuit to 0 points, while scoring 13.
Even though Jesuit lost, their are still some positive takeaways. For example, this game did not affect Jesuit’s seeding in playoffs, remaining the number 1 seed in the division 2 playoffs. Coach Hickman thought that the team showed great effort on both sides of the ball, but they need to be able to stop teams on third and longs as well as convert some of their own third and longs. Another positive takeaway was that this game gave the team a “wake up call” as Coach Hickman said. It’s better to have the wake up call now during the season rather than in the postseason. This game also gave Jesuit an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and improve moving into the last week of the regular season.
Coach Hickman stated, “We are moving forward together as a team and will be ready this week.” On Thursday night, Jesuit will take on R. L. Turner in their last district game of the season, so come out to Standridge Stadium to support your Rangers.
