Before the 2018 season started, a savvy observer could look at Xavier's schedule and point toward September 14 as a real test of where last year's state champions would stand. The Saints were set to go on the road to West Delaware, a place they had never played, to take on a sturdy 3A program with a 10-year playoff streak that was returning a 1200-yard rusher, a very good quarterback, and had some real size and strength on both sides of the line. Indeed, going into the game we were looking at a matchup of two undefeated squads with serious playoff expectations.
(Yes, West Delaware's 3-0 record came partly from a forfeit from the week before, when Mt. Vernon's coach made the principled and upright admission that his team had inadvertently used a player for more quarters than was allowed in their last-second win over the Hawks. It still stands, though, that West Delaware has excellent players in an excellent program that intended to give the Saints everything they had.)
And for a rather tough 15 game minutes on Friday night, Xavier and West Delaware were slugging it out toe-to-toe, with only a blocked extra point keeping the game from being tied. By the time the Hawks got four more first downs, though, Xavier had tallied four touchdowns and a field goal to pull away on their way to a 45-12 win. The Saints remain undefeated, with their 17th consecutive win tying a school mark set in the state championship year of 2006.
The game was scoreless until very late in the first quarter, when Nate Skala finally got a chance at a punt return and raced all the way inside the West Delaware 20. A penalty on the Hawks moved the ball to the 8, and Quinn Schulte ran it in on the next play to go up 7-0. After that, Saints mistakes coupled with a fired-up Hawk team started to turn the tide a bit. Xavier had a possible touchdown on a long pass-and-run from Schulte to Braden Stovie taken off the board by a penalty; then on the very next play Schulte threw one of the worst passes of his career off-target, where it was intercepted by West Delaware.
The interception return set the Hawks up at Xavier's 35, and another penalty moved the ball inside the 20. Xavier's defense stood up strong inside the 10, forcing a third-down play. West Delaware's Nick Casey did a nice job of faking handoffs to two running backs criss-crossing in the backfield, then threw to a wide-open Logan Winn for the tying touchdown. Wait a minute - there would be no tie, as Xavier blocked the extra point attempt (Jim Ecker tells me it was Pat McGinn on the block) and Xavier held on to a 7-6 lead.
Xavier's defense ended up stopping the Hawks on 4th down on their next possession, taking over near midfield. A few plays later Schulte makes an outstanding run, taking the time to set up blocks downfield and looking for space, going 33 yards down to the 1. He carried the ball in on the next play to put the Saints up 14-6. Xavier forced a three-and-out after than, and when Casey's punt didn't make it all the way out of bounds, Schulte was back there to field it and return it all the way to West Delaware's 39-yard line. The offense gets to the 6 before being stopped on 4th down, and Ben Conrad boots his fourth field goal of the year to give Xavier a 17-6 halftime lead.
Then comes the third quarter. Xavier received the kickoff, with a nice return setting them up at the 44. The Saints move steadily downfield, every play on the ground (against a defense that had been much better against the run than the pass this season). Schulte runs in his third TD of the game on a 1-yard sneak to make it 24-6. The Saints allow one first down on the Hawks' next drive, but then force a short punt, muffed and recovered at their 42. On the first play, Schulte drops back and looks deep down the middle to a streaking Kyle Moeder, who outraced his defender, gathered in the bomb, and sped the rest of the way for a 58-yard score. Now it's 31-6. West Delaware gets only one first down again, and Xavier stuffs the Hawks on 4th and short at the WD 41. Again, on the next play, Stovie runs off-tackle to the right, evades tacklers, makes a fancy stutter-step move, runs between two other defenders, and is eventually hit at the 2 and carried into the end zone by West Delaware tacklers. Three consecutive Xavier plays have ended in touchdowns, with 21 points scored in less than four minutes of game time. It's 38-6 with almost 6 minutes left in the third quarter, and the Hawks are trying to figure out what hit them.
Xavier adds another touchdown on a 38-yard run by Stovie in the fourth quarter before West Delaware finally puts together a nine-play drive to score with just under three minutes left. But that's all she wrote. What looked like a tough test going in, and even through the first quarter, ends in another 40-point game for the Saints and another convincing victory.
A couple of points - Xavier had a lot of penalties on the night. If there's one thing that's hurt good Xavier teams over the years, it's 15-yard penalties at inopportune times (and in most cases, those 15-yard penalties are easily avoidable, the odd pass-interference call notwithstanding). In the first three weeks of the season, we hadn't seen that as a factor, but it certainly was there this past week. The other point is the mistakes - Schulte's poor throw for an interception, a muffed punt that was lost, a couple of passes to open receivers just off the mark. Take those things away and you're looking at an even more dominant victory. I'll also just mention, going into the game I thought Xavier would probably need to use the passing game to get going, as West Delaware had proved rather weak at defending the pass while being very tough on the ground. It turns out the 58-yard TD bomb from Schulte to Moeder was just about the only passing yards Xavier would get on the night, while the ground game piled up a ton of yardage. I think this does show the Saints' offensive line is continuing to play at a very high level.
Now we go into district play. Remember, district champions are guaranteed playoff spots in October, while anyone who does not win their district has to compete with the rest of Class 3A for one of the remaining seven (or fewer, considering possible district ties) spots. So it's a pretty big deal to win the whole thing. Xavier has won their district each of their four seasons in 3A (winning by a tiebreaker in 2014, outright and undefeated the other three years) and are in pretty good shape to repeat again this year. Maquoketa and Dubuque Wahlert are the first two district games, and neither has won a game yet. The next test for the Saints will be October 5 against Western Dubuque, a team putting gaudy numbers up on offense until dropping a 7-6 decision to North Scott last week. And the end of the district schedule continues to be a challenge, with a pretty good Center Point-Urbana team and finally Marion (both of those on the road).
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