Dragons Snap 7-Game Losing Streak, Win Season-Opener Routing 'Cats

BY MICHAEL BOYD JR.
STE. GENEVIEVE HERALD

Ste. Genevieve junior quarterback Brendan Weiler prepares to throw the football downfield during SGHS's 41-25 home- and season-opening victory Friday night. Photo courtesy of Pam Billings.

Oh, it feels so good to be victorious. That’s something Ste. Genevieve’s football squad hasn’t been able to say since Week 3 of last season.

Friday night, the host Dragons snapped a seven-game losing streak by soaring over Dexter 41-25 at Dragons Stadium in both teams’ season-opener. It was their third straight win over the Bearcats.

Ste. Genevieve jumped all over the Bearcats for a 14-0 lead after one quarter of action and a 27-7 halftime lead as they held on from there after struggling in the second half.

“Things started off a little bit on the not-so-good side for Dexter that first quarter,” 22nd-year Dragons Coach Bob Stolzer said. “We scored pretty quick and the next thing you know we get a defensive score and things were going our way.”

Junior quarterback Brendan Weiler wasted no time getting back to where he left off last season. He passed for 421 yards and four touchdowns on 31-of-54 passing with two interceptions. He also scrambled for 29 yards and had to deal with snapping issues all game long from the center.

Junior receiver Derek Brown had 199 all-purpose yards — a career-high 153 yards receiving and a TD, and two kickoff returns for 44 yards.

Junior receiver Travis Grither had 145 all-purpose yards — 108 yards receiving, 44 yards on two kickoff returns, but minus-7 yards rushing.

But the Dragons only mustered 32 yards on the ground — an issue they’ll have to figure out quickly since the line struggled to block when needed.

“We’re not doing the things we should be able to do,” Stolzer said. “We thought we should have run the ball a lot better today. We have to have the good balance. If we get that balance as far as rushing the ball it will improve our passing game. Until we do that, then it will be hard to accomplish a lot of things. It’s going to be a matter of our kids improving every game. I know we’re young, but that’s not an excuse. We have to run block. That’s all there is to it. We just weren’t doing that.

But it’s hard when you’re 160-170 pounds or something that small and you’re lined up against a 230-pound kid, it’s not an easy feat. I felt the kids were sticking their noses in there for the most part, but we’ll see it all on film and go from there. It will be good to watch.”

Junior rusher Jake Billings had 68 all-purpose yards and scored two TDs as he had 54 yards receiving and a TD and 14 yards running and a TD.

Junior Dylan Noll, the brother of SGHS’s all-time leading receiver and the Army’s Missouri Iron Man 2008 winner Dustin Noll, added 50 yards receiving and a TD and Jacob Roe added 41 yards receiving and his first career TD reception before suffering a groin injury in the first half.

“I thought the kids did a real good job of getting more yards after the catch, something we didn’t do real well last year,” Stolzer said. “That was one area we had to address from last season — tackling being the other. I thought the kids did a real good job running the ball after they caught it. Travis’ catch in front of (Dexter’s) bench late in the ballgame to get us out of the hole, that was a big-time catch. That was a tremendous catch.”

Ste. Genevieve defeated the Bearcats at Dexter in last year’s season-opener. It was one of only two wins for the Dragons last year, while Dexter went on to reach the state playoffs as a wildcard.

The Dragons last win came against Perryville in a 40-0 decision in Week 3. It also was SGHS’s last home win.

On this night, Ste. Genevieve was just happy to win. A 2-8 season is rare in the Stolzer era as head coach and they hope to avoid the first back-to-back losing seasons since they had six in a row from 1979-84, including their last 2-8 season in 1983.

Ste. Genevieve got going just three minutes into the game when Jacob Roe scored his first career TD on a 30-yard pass from Weiler. Luke Palmer added the point-after touchdown kick for a 7-0 lead.

Roe did return in the second half but was limited as to what he could do.

One minute later, Keith Arman scored his first career TD when the Dexter rusher just lost the handle on the ball while running and it popped into Arman’s hands.

Arman raced 30 yards on the return and Palmer’s kick made it 14-0 after one quarter.

In the second stage, Billings caught a pass and zig-zagged his way to a 44-yard TD reception for a 20-0 lead with 6:32 left in the opening half.

Brown then took a short pass from Weiler for a TD. Palmer’s kick made it 27-0 with 3:48 left in the half.

Junior Joshua Overall got the Bearcats on the Dragons’ new scoreboard with a 45-yard TD run to cut it to 27-7 at halftime.

Overall scored again with 21.6 seconds left in the third period to cut it to 27-13 after three periods.

But Ste. Genevieve answered to start the final frame when Noll caught a diving pass for a seven-yard TD for a 34-13 lead. The play was deja vu from the play before that was nullified via a penalty. It even happened the same way as Noll made a diving catch for a TD on that one as well.

Dexter wouldn’t go away easily, however. Overall made it 34-19 when he punched in a 1-yard TD run with 7:20 left in the game.

But Billings capped off the ensuing drive when he was hit just past the line of scrimmage at the Bearcats’ 2-yard line and just stretched out to fall over the line.

Palmer made it 41-19 with just under three minutes remaining.

Dexter junior QB Cody Stevens answered on the ensuing drive on a four-yard keeper with one minute left for the final score.

That would be it as injured backup freshman QB Adam Schwent took two knees to end the game.

“You have to give Dexter kids credit for sticking in there because of the way the game started off, it looked like it was going to be a long night for them,” Stolzer said. “They slammed the door on that and as the night went along they got a lot stronger.”

Defensively, big sophomore Dan Terrana had nine total tackles. Logan Giesler and Arman both had five tackles. Grither, Roe, Ryan Karl, Nic Wittu and Kyle Figge all had four tackles. Figge also recovered a Dexter fumble.

Stevens finished with 163 yards on 10-of-24 passing and had a rushing TD.

Sophomore Chade Young had 67 yards receiving. Overall finished with 48 yards rushing and two TDs.

•Notes: This game was a possible first- or second-round Class 3 playoff matchup should both teams qualify for the MSHSAA postseason tournament. ... Ste. Genevieve has defeated Dexter five of their last seven meetings this century; Dexter won the 2006 season-opener over Ste. Genevieve 14-0 (Kory Faulkner’s first varsity start at QB) and the 2004 season-opener 21-7 (Tanner Wolk’s first varsity start at QB). ... Weiler is the first Dragons’ QB1 to defeat Dexter in the season-opener twice. ... Palmer was 5 for 6 on PATs. ... Ste. Genevieve outgained Dexter 453 to 347, but were outrushed 177-32. ... Ste. Genevieve had 70 yards in penalties to Dexter’s 40. ... Ste. Genevieve ran 86 plays to Dexter’s 60. ... Ste. Genevieve had 21 first downs to Dexter’s 14. ... Schwent had suffered a quad-muscle injury in his leg during summer camp and has been limited in preseason practices. ... Snapping issues hampered many plays for Ste. Genevieve. ... Both teams suffered from leg cramps during the game, including one player from both teams needing assistant from trainers at the same time, lying side-by-side. ... Dexter had back-to-back turnover-on-downs inside the Dragons’ 5-yard line prior to scoring its first TD. ... Motorcycles on the other side of the trees beyond the west sideline (visitor’s side) created an early cloud of dust that lingered for most of the first half making it difficult to see or breathe for players; last year’s Ste. Genevieve-Dexer game saw a light fog hanging over the gridiron at Dexter during the game making it difficult to see.

•Up next: Ste. Genevieve visits crosstown rivals Valle Catholic at 7 p.m. Friday for the annual Old Settlement Showdown, which is re-tied at 23-all as Valle has won the last two meetings.