In their first away game of the season Friday, October 21, 2011, Jesuit football found its stride against the Lake Highlands Wildcats.
It took two overtime periods to complete, but the Rangers squeaked out a 49-42 victory.
For the very first time this year, the Rangers got on a bus at 4:45 and commuted over to Lake Highlands to play an away game in the stadium nickname “The Boneyard.”
Last time Jesuit played in the Boneyard was in 2004, the year the Rangers went a team-record 9-1, made the playoffs, and won the first-round of games. The game was the ultimate decider on who would make the playoffs, Jesuit or Lake Highlands. The game was hard-fought, back-and-forth, and an ultimate test of determination. Like last week’s battle, the game went into overtime, and Jesuit won the game by running right up the middle. After Jesuit scored, players, fans, and students all stormed the field in jubilation.
The Rangers were hoping for the same outcome when they returned to the Boneyard this past week, planning to upend Lake Highlands’ Senior Night.
Finding themselves in unusual territory, the Rangers received the opening kickoff and started to march down the field. Riding the success from last week’s game against Richardson, in which he threw 8 touchdowns, QB Brian Buell ’12 marched the Rangers downfield on a 6 minute, 68-yard touchdown drive. Brian finished the drive with a 1-yard strike to RB Will Brown ’13.
The Rangers led 7-0, and the defense did a good job by limiting the Wildcats to only five first quarter plays and forcing a fumble that was recovered by DT Eric Johnson ’12.
The Rangers capitalized on the turnover, using only two plays to fly into the endzone. The drive consisted of two catches by WR Jake Oliver ’13, including a perfectly placed throw in double-coverage.
Hoping for better results, LH trotted onto the field and returned the kickoff into Jesuit territory. The Cats used three plays to score, finding pay dirt on a 37-yard touchdown pass from QB Michael Ketchmark to WR Zack Fleig.
On the next Jesuit possession, the Rangers used 13 plays to get to the Lake Highlands 17-yard-line, but failed on an attempted 4th down conversion. This set LH up for a long drive, but WR Michael Wright, with the help of QB Trent Jones, made it look easy. Wright made one of the best catches to cap the drive in recent high school football memory. He used one hand to palm the ball right out of the air and tiptoed down the east sideline 60 yards for a Wildcat score.
Buell then brought his Rangers back out onto the field and broke the tie, hooking up with WR Marty Murad ’12 from 24 yards out to make the score Jesuit 21-14.
Following a LH interception, Jesuit’s offense was able to come back onto the field and score some more points before halftime. RB Garrett Van de Ven ’13 punched a score in with six seconds left from 33-yards out. At halftime, Jesuit led 28-14.
At halftime, a fight broke out on the field between the two teams. The benches cleared, and coaches ran out onto the field as well. This fight communicated to the crowd the immense competition between these two schools.
When the teams came back together after the break, Lake Highlands used a nice kickoff return to set up a fluid drive, ending in Ketchmark’s second touchdown of the night with a 26-yard completion to WR Jacobi Johnson.
After three straight 3-and-outs, Lake Highlands struck again, riding RB DeVonte Sunwenghan into the end zone on rushes of 27 and 5 yards. Last year, Lake Highlands ruined the opening of our stadium and our homecoming game, with Sungwenhan rushing for 192 yards and 4 touchdowns. While still productive, he wasn’t as big a force in this year’s matchup.
With the Wildcats scratching at their heels, Jesuit looked to its superstars to pull the team through in crunch time. The next drive started in the 3rd quarter and worked into the 4th Quarter. Plays by Oliver, Buell, Van de Ven, and WR Austin Lock ’12 propelled the Rangers into the end zone to take a 35-28 lead. Van de Ven scored his second touchdown of the night to break the tie.
On the next LH drive, the Wildcats ran the ball efficiently, with Sunwenghan tallying his biggest rush (52 yards) of the evening. Jones powered through the defense to tie the game at 35-35.
Jesuit looked to break the tie and get out of a close matchup, but Oliver fumbled on one catch, and LH recovered. However, three straight penalties by the Wildcats backed them up 25 yards, forcing them to punt.
The next two possessions took up most of the time in the 4th Quarter.
After Jesuit forced another punt with 49 seconds remaining, they didn’t lose hope to win in the final seconds. However, a Lake Highlands LB made a beautiful diving interception, using Buell’s intended receiver Will Brown to catapult himself to the ball. This is only Buell’s second interception of the year.
Lake Highlands also failed to win in the final seconds, fumbling the ball with less than 10 seconds left in the game. Many Jesuit fans looked for a classic Hail-Mary to either Lock or Oliver, but Coach Hickman looked to his Offensive Line in hopes of catching the Wildcats off-guard. This last run sent the game into overtime: Jesuit’s second of the year.
In the first overtime, Jesuit got the ball first, and Oliver caught a 10-yard pass for a score. Lake Highlands used one 25-yard run by Sunwenghan to force a second OT, causing their fans to go absolutely nuts.
However, Sunwenghan ultimately caused the Wildcats’ demise in the second overtime. He fumbled the ball on the first possession, and Jesuit recovered. With a score, Jesuit would escape the Boneyard with a W. Buell hooked up with Oliver for a 23-yard score, and he handed the ball off to Van de Ven to win the game from 3-yards out.
Hickman said, “It’s a power play that [they] ran there. The offensive line did a great job opening up a hole and Garrett punched it in the end zone.”
Power was the exact play Jesuit used to beat Lake Highlands in their last visit to the Boneyard.
“I just followed my alignment and I just snuck in there. It was a great play,” Van de Ven said.
With the win, Jesuit secured a playoff spot in the 5A playoffs.
After the game, CB Colin Cunningham ’12 shrugged off the pressure of playing in a hostile environment like the Boneyard, saying, “The blackout was a cool idea, but we had a lot of confidence in ourselves and the game plan. We were pretty much able to block all of their Senior Night stuff out [of our minds].”
After all, senior nights do get ruined sometimes. An overtime loss like this really had to hurt the Wildcats (4-4; 3-2), who now face an uphill battle to make the playoffs.
Cunningham said that the overtime didn’t really scare the team “since they had already won a 4-overtime game this year, and [LH] hadn’t even gone to one.” He said that they “were kind of hoping for OT because [they] knew we could outlast [the Wildcats].”
Buell went 33-49 for 384 yards and 4 more touchdowns, boosting his total to 21 on the year. The running back corps of Van de Ven, Franz, and Brown did a superb job, totaling for a season-best 257 yards rushing. Oliver again posted huge numbers, including 15 receptions for 187 yards and 2 touchdowns. The offense just kept rolling, putting up 641 yards – another season-best.
Lake Highlands’ Michael Ketchmark threw for 154 yards, and Sunwenghan led the way for the rushers with 136 yards. Lake Highlands totaled 483 yards of offense.
The next game for Jesuit is against the (1-7; 1-4) Samuell Spartans for Homecoming. After the Ranger Day festivities, the team will look to rout Samuell, a team they beat 44-0 last year.
Cunningham said that the team “knows [they’re] going to be favored, [but] Samuell’s a good team that almost beat W.T. White, so [they’re] making sure [they] take care of business on Homecoming.”
Come support your Rangers (6-2; 3-1) this Friday at 7:30 on Homecoming Night. Jesuit looks to keep its winning ways and be peaking by playoff time.
