Cardinals win state title
Thursday, December 10, 2015
St. Paul Cardinal Football | St. Paul Cardinal Sports
"I feel fantastic," said Cardinal senior Jed Janecek. "Ecstatic," said senior Reagan Beal. "Amazing. Better than I think I've felt in my whole life," added senior Derek Kapavik.
With smiles on their faces and state championship medals around their necks, the St. Paul Cardinals celebrated their 5th state football title Friday night in Bastrop with a 43-40 win over Cedar Hill Trinity Christian, the perfect end to a perfect season. Shown here is the entire St. Paul football team with the trophy after the win including all players, coaches, water boys, trainers, and managers.
[ NOTE: click on photo to enlarge ]all photos by Stephanie Kasper
With smiles on their faces and state championship medals around their necks, the St. Paul Cardinals celebrated their fifth state football title Friday night in Bastrop with a 43- 40 win over Cedar Hill Trinity Christian, the perfect end to a perfect season.
St. Paul started off the game strong on offense with four touchdowns in the first half. Quarterback Austin Barton opened up the scoring on a 52-yard run and promptly added a 55-yard passing touchdown to Ryan Geiger. The other two came on 60- and 16-yard runs from T.J. Bell, who had 214 yards and 5 total touchdowns on the night.
The Cardinals went into halftime with a 25- 14 lead and it looked like it would be smooth sailing to victory. However, things were far from easy in the second half of play. Trinity shaved the Cardinals lead down to just 5 points by the end of the third quarter and took the lead 26-25 on the first play of the fourth quarter. That was just the first of four lead changes in a fourth quarter roller coaster.
St. Paul regained the lead just under the 9 minute mark on a 64- yard pass from Barton to Bell, lost it again on a Tiger passing touchdown, and fought their way back on top with an 84 yard Bell kick return for a touchdown, which put the Cardinals up 37-32.
Noah Leist congratulates T.J. Bell after a touchdown run. Bell racked up 5 touchdowns on the night, 3 on rushing plays, 1 on a pass reception, and 1 on a kick return.
[ NOTE: click on photo to enlarge ]
Bell put up one more rushing touchdown for good measure on a 60- yard run with two minutes left on the clock. That "extra" touchdown turned out to be a crucial one when the Tigers put up one more touchdown of their own with just 16 seconds left on the clock, tightening it up to 43-40.
The Tigers tried an on-side kick in the final few seconds of the game, but it was grabbed by senior Nathan Pilat to clinch the victory for the Cardinals.
Beal described their second-half strategy saying, "We just had to stay calm and trust each other. That's what we did all season and that's what we did at the end. It pulled us through."
Janecek added, "We just found a way. That's what we've been doing all year."
St. Paul had 345 rushing yards, including 107 from Barton on 13 carries in addition to his 119 passing yards. Trinity out-passed the Cardinals with 395 yards and racked up more total yards than St. Paul as well. However, they did not surpass the Cardinals in the only statistic that really counts, the points on the scoreboard.
Coach Jake Wachsmuth, almost overwhelmed with pride, said, "These kids, two years ago, they went through a tough season and finished 2-6. This year, just look at them. I believe that season led to this season. They went through some bad times and you could just see how bad they wanted it. They played through some pain. They played through being really tired. This is just a special group of kids."
Beal added, "It's unbelievable to go 13- 0, the perfect season. Sophomore year we only had two wins. To come this far, I couldn't be more proud of our team."
Coach Denver Diefenbach gives Nathan Pilat a high-five after he grabbed ahold of Trinity’s on-side kick. This play gave the Cardinals possession of the ball for the final minute of the game and clinched the state title for St. Paul.
St. Paul receives their trophy. Front row, left to right, are T.J. Bell, Jed Janecek, Nathan Pilat, Colton Machart, and Dylan Mills.
[ NOTE: click on any photo to enlarge ]
© Copyright
BaerCom - Shiner, Texas 2015
