Cavs fall in season opener
HOMEWOOD -- The play was called “touchdown,” and John Carroll Catholic had been working on it for three weeks leading into Friday’s season opener against St. Clair County.
It was open. Quarterback Nicholas Sellers lined up out wide, took a pitch and threw it long. But he was throwing against heavy pressure and the pass was incomplete.
The game went downhill from there for the Cavaliers in a 45-0 home loss to the Saints, a Class 5A semifinalist last season. But this was the game that coach Logan Colafrancesco wanted his team to play - one against quality competition and his good friend in Saints coach Matt Glover.
“My thing is that you want to play good people to see where you are,” said Colafrancesco, who noted that the Cavs won their opener last season but just twice more after that.
“If we had played somebody not very good, we might have played better and won. We’d be sitting there playing good, but we wouldn’t be a good football team. Now, we know where we stand and what we need to work on.”
The young Cavaliers went three-and-out on that first drive and fumbled the kickoff after St. Clair County scored on its first drive. The Saints’ Braxton Ragland, a college prospect who was once committed to Ole Miss, ran for 101 yards and three touchdowns (1, 38 and 20 yards). Sophomore quarterback Cade Golden threw touchdown passes of 48 yards to Justin Walker and 17 yards to Micah Gilbert. Rodney Jones for an 11-yard score, and the Saints got a 29-yard field goal and a safety when the Cavs had a punt snap go out of the end zone.
Colafrancesco said that only four of his players have played significant snaps coming into the season, and 38 of his 58 players are freshmen and sophomores.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Colafrancesco said. “The best part about it is that we look at film and we might have to change a guy here or there, but we’ll get there.”
The Cavs had two legit scoring opportunities in the first half, but a slant pass into the end zone on fourth and goal from the 8 was broken up early in the second quarter, and a pass to the right flat on fourth and goal just inside the 2 was incomplete late in the half.
“Mental mistakes,” Colafrancesco said. “Running the wrong route, not throwing to the right person, not running to the right hole, not blocking the right person. Just stuff that we’ve never done. We film every practice and go over practice film. We don’t run many plays, but we had mental breakdowns in costly situations.”
Colafrancesco praised the performance of freshman running back Aaron Mason, who had 60 yards on 16 carries in his first varsity game.
“His performance was great,” Colafrancesco said. “He’s a hard-nosed kid. He’s 14 years old or whatever and he’s just a freshman. He’s got a bright future and we’re glad he’s with us.”
John Carroll is at Leeds next week.
“You don’t go in there and browbeat them,” Colafrancesco said. “You just say that these are the mistakes that we made and we’re going to correct them and go on.
“We’re 0-1, but the sun’s going to come up in the morning. We’re going to be OK. We’re going to learn from it and get better.”
Zach Elliott had an interception for the Cavs.
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