Staff photo / Greg Macafee
Ursuline’s CJ Frasco (7) delivers a hit on Steubenville’s Cajuan Bryant (22) and forces a fumble as Isaac Lucas (56) follows up on the play. The Irish recovered the fumble and scored on the very next play as part of a 36-28 win.
YOUNGSTOWN — It may have been sloppy, but Ursuline opened its season on a high Thursday night.
While it was the offense that put the points on the board, the Irish defense rose to the occasion against Steubenville, as Ursuline handled an almost 90-minute weather delay and defeated the Big Red 36-28 behind four turnovers forced by the defense.
Some key early stops — a three-and-out, a forced fumble and recovery and a turnover on downs — from the defense ultimately gave the Irish the edge to keep Steubenville at arm’s length, especially in the first half.
“We had a couple interceptions when they were driving, and we had a fumble recovery on a kickoff that seems like 12 hours ago,” Ursuline head coach Dan Reardon said. “When you get a bunch of takeaways, it can be deflating if you’re on the other side of that. We never felt like we were in a comfortable position. We got some good field position as a result of some of those (turnovers) and we were able to capitalize.”
It wasn’t clean though, and it never is in the first game of the season. The Irish (1-0) had two turnovers of their own, as well as some other miscues, including a shanked punt and mishandled snaps.
“Someone asked me earlier in the week, and I said if I get just a one-point victory over Steubenville with Reno Saccoccia as head football coach, I am happy,” Reardon said. “It got a little bit interesting there at the end. It was a little disappointing because we ended up with fourth and relatively short, and if we had just gotten a little more, we could have just been taking a knee and it didn’t happen. But at the end of the day, we got the win, and I will take it gladly.”
For the Big Red (0-1), it was a game of “almosts.” Steubenville almost got the stops, almost made the tackles and almost scored the points needed to stay with the Irish.
To open the game, Ursuline wasted no time, marching straight down the field on its opening drive to strike first on a 13-yard touchdown run by Christian Lynch. The Irish converted three fourth downs as they moved the ball down the field against the Big Red’s defense.
Steubenville answered with a touchdown of its own, but failed to convert a two-point conversion. Before the end of the first quarter, the Irish struck again, as Jack Ericson found Tairan Davis for a four-yard touchdown strike.
Ursuline’s defense finally got its first stop on the Big Red’s opening drive of the second quarter, forcing Steubenville to punt after a pair of sacks. But the Big Red responded in kind, sacking Ericson twice to set up favorable field position.
A few minutes before the break, the Irish defense recovered a fumble. On the next play, Ursuline added to its lead with another touchdown pass from Ericson, this time to Devonte Taylor from 20 yards out.
But the Big Red struck quickly to get some more points on the board just before halftime and the Irish held a 29-12 lead at the break.
The Irish knocked the wind out of Steubenville early in the second half, forcing a fumble on the second-half kickoff and scoring three plays later as Taylor caught his second score of the game.
However, a pair of turnovers by the Irish then gave Steubenville some life. Elijah Mullins returned an Ericson interception 65 yards for a score, and then shortly thereafter, the Big Red recovered a fumble.
As Steubenville attempted to claw back into the game in the second half, Ursuline’s defense again stood tall. A pair of interceptions, with one at the goal line, helped the Irish maintain their lead.
But, with 5:06 to go in regulation, the game was suspended due to severe storms with Ursuline leading 36-20 and the ball near midfield.
A 79-minute delay ensued as rain, wind and lightning swept through the Mahoning Valley, and the teams returned to the field for warmups at 10:55 p.m.
“When you go in, you don’t know how long the delay is going to be,” Reardon said. “You don’t know if you’re coming back in 30 minutes or coming back tomorrow evening or anything in between. So our message to the kids (during the delay) was just stay loose. We were pumping them with water and Gatorade because we didn’t want them to tighten up physically, but we also didn’t want to tighten up mentally either. Trying to get them to stay focused is a fine line.”
After play resumed, Steubenville received an Ursuline punt and drove down the field to make it an eight-point game.
The Big Red’s onside kick went out of bounds and Ursuline took over. The Irish were able to run some more time left on the clock, but after Steubenville timeouts, Ursuline decided to punt it away and make the Big Red go the length of the field with under a minute to go and no timeouts left.
“My assistants talked me out of it,” Reardon said. “Our kids have a lot of confidence that they can get a yard or two. There was definitely some discussion whether to go for it or not, but ultimately, they didn’t have any timeouts. So we just thought, let’s add 20 or 30 yards that they have to try to drive to score, so we played a little bit conservative there.”
A Steubenville Hail Mary attempt fell well short of the end zone as time expired.
