Marquette surprises, rolls over deflated St. Bede

PERU – Knowing how tough the St. Bede Bruins have played their tough schedule so far this season, there were no doubt quite a few football fans were greatly surprised by Marquette’s one-sided 43-7 victory on the Bruins homecoming on Saturday.

But none were more surprised than Crusaders head coach Tom Jobst.

Not that the Marquette coach doesn’t believe in his club, because he does. However, it was the way the team played with confidence on offense – scoring touchdowns on their first six possessions, three of those by Jaxsen Higgins – and a tough, physical defense that limited the Bruins to just 122 total yards on the day that turned the expected nail-biter into an unexpected rout.

“I told Jim I didn’t see this one coming at all,” Jobst said of his postgame chat with SBA coach Jim Eustice. “I thought this was going to be a real dogfight. In fairness, they have a couple of key injuries and illness so they weren’t all together today. But nonetheless, our kids executed well and played hard. We had a good hard week of practice and it showed.”

Anthony Couch’s passing – 3 for 5 for 129 yards and three TDs – helped Higgins to his remarkable day, with seven carries for 92 yards and scoring receptions of 11 and 55 yards. Grant Dose contributed 16 rushes for 66 yards and two TDs and Payton Gutierrez had 11 tries for 47 yards.

“This was the most comfortable we’ve all been this season, easy,” Higgins said. “We came in to this big rivalry game, knowing we had to be ready and we were. We knew we had to be perfect to beat these guys and it was perfect, right from the start. We got them down, they got their heads down and we kept going.”

Of the Bruins’ yards, 75 came on its only score, a pass from quarterback AJ Hermes to end Carson Riva, who dodged three tacklers and rambled to the end zone. Ryan Solimin’s kick cut it to 43-7.

But other than that, Landon Marquez had 23 yards on 12 carries was the Bedans’ best.

The decisive moments in the Chicagoland Prairie Conference encounter came on a fourth down on each team’s first possession.

The Cru (3-2) had a fourth-and-1 on its own 27 when Jobst’s assistants convinced him to go for it instead of punting. Grant Dose burst through for three years and the drive continued until his 4-yard TD capped the 13-play, 82-yard drive.

The Bruins (1-4) responded with a march into Marquette territory, but on fourth-and-1 at the Cru 36, Marquette’s defense stuffed quarterback Gino Ferrari on an attempted sneak to get both the ball and complete the momentum swing.

That letdown, plus the absence of captains, senior linebacker/back Grady Gillan and senior lineman Jake Migliorini, drained the hosts into what became a significant departure from the solid effort in last week’s 36-12 loss to 3A No. 5-ranked Seneca.

“We had a fourth down – and I still think that was a first down – and the wind out of our sails and we never recovered from that,” Eustice said. “They scored again and things just snowballed on us, mental mistake after mental mistake as the game went on … We were missing a couple of key guys, sure, but we should have been able to execute what we’d practiced and we didn’t, for the first time all year.

“Not to take anything away from Marquette because they executed and didn’t make any mistakes, but coming off how well and how tough we played Seneca … we collectively laid an egg.”

Higgins made sure the swing stayed swung. Eight plays later, he broke a sweep left for a 38-yard TD that with Couch’s PAT pass to Keaton Davis made it 14-0.

After the first of three straight three-and-outs by St. Bede came the first scoring connection between Higgins and Couch, an 11-yard strike. Again, a Couch to Davis PAT made it 22-0 before Higgins and Couch linked up again.

This time, it was a short pass that Higgins turned into a 55-yard jaunt to paydirt. Sam Mitre’s second kick widened the gap to 29-0.

Marquette’s defense forced a Bruin punt with just 15 seconds left in the half, but that was enough time for Couch to link up with freshman tight end Blayden Cassel on a 63-yard scoring bomb with just four seconds on the clock. It went to 36-0 at the break on Sam Mitre’s second PAT kick.

In the third quarter, a fumble recovery by Davis at the SBA 17 led to a 1-yard dive by Dose and started the running clock.

“This was Anthony Couch’s best passing performance in two years,” Jobst said. “He was relaxed, he was laying them in there, he was the best I’ve seen him since he’s been our quarterback.”

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Marquette's Jaxsen Higgins sprints down the field as St. Bede defenders Ryan Nawa and Phillip Gray chase after him during the Homecoming game on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024 at St. Bede Academy. (Scott Anderson)