JOURNAL GAZETTEFORT WAYNE – There’s a well-worn football axiom out there that says it’s not the team you play that is a factor, but when you play it.
If that’s true, then Malone’s timing to schedule Saint Francis on Saturday at Bishop D’Arcy Stadium was, in a word, abysmal.
After losing their last two games at home – an absolute Saint Francis rarity since the only time back-to-back home losses occurred was in 1998 – the Cougars reverted back to their old, dominating ways with a 47-10 thrashing of the visiting Pioneers. It was the most decisive Saint Francis home victory since a 56-6 win over Olivet Nazarene in 2009.
“After last week I felt like our defense got embarrassed,” senior defensive back Ross Bauman said of a 40-13 loss to No. 2 Marian. “We weren’t up for the challenge. This week was take it out on the next opponent.”
And so Malone, which had gotten as close as 6-3 early in the first quarter, became buried beneath an avalanche of 41 unanswered points – a string that ended when the Pioneers got a meaningless fourth-quarter score against the Cougars’bench.
“We said no talking this week,” Bauman said. “We’ve been doing a lot of talking, but we haven’t been backing it up like we need to. So we said no talking this week and let our play do the talking. So we came out and smacked them in the mouth.”
It was a crippling one-two punch: One, from the defense that scored a pair of touchdowns and sacked two Malone quarterbacks a record-tying seven times; and two, from the offense that was spearheaded by freshman running back Antoin Campbell’s 181 yards and senior quarterback Justin Boser’s three touchdown passes.
Big plays came from every angle.
Erick Humphrey picked off a Malone pass and cruised 21 yards for a touchdown with 56 seconds left in the first quarter, then midway through the second, Koree Torrell returned a fumble 20 yards for a touchdown that increased the lead to 33-3.
Offensively, Campbell had a 78-yard breakaway for a touchdown, and wide receiver Austin Coleman, in his only snap of the game (he’s recovering from a shoulder injury) hooked up with Boser for a 56-yard touchdown.
“You need a win all the time,” Saint Francis coach Kevin Donley said. “We needed one that was decisive and decided early, and this one was.”
If there’s such a thing as a definitive play in a 37-point win, it came early in the second quarter after Malone running back Daryon Mosley broke loose for a 40-yard gain.
He was chased down by defensive end Tony Moore, sans helmet, who caught Mosley at the Cougars’ 27-yard line.
On the next three plays, Malone went backward 4, 9 and 5 yards, was forced to punt, and Saint Francis scored again.
“When you’ve been to Iraq a couple of times, tackling a guy with no helmet is no big deal,” Donley said of Moore, a former Marine.
