VERSAILLES — Winning isn’t always pretty.
For St. John’s football coach Todd Schulte, it’s still winning.
His youthful Blue Jays went up with 9:21 left and then held on to edge Versailles 14-8 in a Midwest Athletic Conference tussle Friday night on the sod of “The Hole” in Versailles.
“We’ll take the good, the bad and the ugly. We had to scrap,” Schulte acknowledged. “We had a good week of practice as far as X’s and O’s went but not the intensity. I told them in pre-game that we’ll see if we can turn it off and on. Versailles had the intensity most of the way until late.”
Trailing 8-7 with 11:01 left in the contest, the Blue Jays (5-0, 3-0 MAC) commenced the winning drive at their 16 — after the defense had held on downs. Four plays later at the Versailles’ 40 — set up by a 29-yard bolt by Jordan Leininger (23 carries, 165 yards) — Matt Brinkman (8 carries, 75 yards) took a tackle trap up the gut, cut to his right at the 20 and sped untouched to the pylon to give the Jays the lead. Jordan Rode added the conversion for a 14-8 lead with 9:21 remaining.
Two series later, Versailles was pinned deep — at their 12 — by a 48-yard punt by Rode with 5:23 showing. They garnered the visitor 45 in six plays using their new-look spread attack — with quarterback Jon Richard (7-of-17 passing, 71 yards) completing 3-of-5 for 41 yards. However, at the Jays’ 45, Richard was under pressure and threw over the middle. It was tipped into the hands of A.J. Klausing at the 27 with 3:32 left.
With Leininger getting five carries for 42 yards, the Jays ran out the clock.
“We needed some stops and we needed some big plays at crunch time. We didn’t get them,” Versailles coach Bob Olwin noted. “Other than that, we played a very good game. We hit hard, we played hard, we executed. Holding them to 14 points tells me we did an outstanding job and competed well.”
On the first possession of the contest, Versailles (1-4, 0-3 MAC) — off a turnover at the Blue Jay 47 — got to the Jays’ 21 but an 8-yard sack by Nate Webb on 4th-and-12 ended that sequence.
The Jays seemingly went ahead with an 8-play, 71-yard drive, with Brinkman taking it in from the Tiger 10 with a would-not-be-denied run. However, an illegal block penalty pushed the Blue and Gold back to the 23 and they had to turn the ball over on downs at the host 29.
Versailles then marched those 71 yards on six plays — dusting off the old Wing-T formation of legendary coach Al Hetrick. At the Blue Jay 17, scatback Jon Murphy took a handoff over the left side, slid outside and sped to the pylon. Lined up to kick the extra point, holder Derek Langenkamp rolled right and found Zach Barlage for the 2 and an 8-0 lead with no time left in the first period.
The Jays again reached Tiger space — the 21 — but a bad pitch lost 12 yards and once more, they turned it over on downs.
Thanks to a shanked Richard punt — as the Jays went after him — with 3:10 left in the half, the visitors took over on the host 19. Leininger ran for 2. From there, Ulm, in the shotgun, ran a draw over right guard, cut to the middle and had a nose for the end zone with 2:21 to go. Rode added the conversion for an 8-7 deficit.
The Jays got the ball back at their 40 with no timeouts left and 1:04 showing. They did gain the Versailles 42 but a procedure penalty and a sack of Ulm by Brandon Pierron effectively ended the half.
“We did some good things offensively the first half; we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot. Once they got the momentum, it was awfully tough to get it back,” Schulte added. “Our offensive line started to take more control as the game wore on. We also went to a double-tight formation a lot because they were hurting us to our weak side. Their defense really came after us. We also heard they had been working on the Wing-T but we were so concerned about their spread, that was our main focus all week.”
Neither team could do anything with their first drives of the second half, with the Tigers taking over at their 20 with 6:31 showing. They took 7:30 off the clock with a 15-play drive — in the Wing-T — but the Jays stiffened and got the ball back on downs at their 16.
“The boys did a great job of executing, being as how we didn’t work a lot on the Wing-T since we’ve put a lot of work in on our spread. I thought they did exceptionally well,” Olwin concluded.
The Jays return home to host Marion Local Friday, while Versailles visits Minster.