Week 4 scores
Ladue High junior defensive back Josh Brown hung his head as he trudged to the sideline.
He had just allowed a long scoring pass to a Ritenour wide receiver he was supposed to be covering in a game on Sept. 5.
“I felt so bad,” Brown said.
Not for long.
Brown was approached by a host of teammates and coaches telling him to shake off the mistake. Senior linebacker Mason Marden was the biggest of his supporters.
“He told me to hang in there and be ready in case they tried that again,” Brown said.
Ritenour did try it again, late in the fourth quarter.
And Brown was more than ready. He sniffed out the play and picked off the pass to nail down a 40-33 triumph in the Suburban Conference Red Pool contest.
The play was a microcosm of the Rams season to date. They have learned from their mistakes and gotten better.
Ladue began the campaign with a difficult 43-0 loss at home to Troy Buchanan.
Yet rather than get down, the players simply bounced back to win three successive contests.
The Rams carry a 3-1 record and a 2-0 league mark into a game at 6 p.m. Thursday at Hazelwood West (0-4).
Ladue coach Adam Hamilton said Brown’s bounce-back interception is one of the highlights of the season so far.
“He’s a first-time varsity starter and he did his job, letting us coach him up,” Hamilton said. “The very last play they ran the exact same play and he stayed back and got the interception. You couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Brown bit on a fake of a short pass and allowed the receiver to flash down the field wide open in the opening half.
The second time around, he stayed home and jumped the route.
“That’s the thing with our kids, they’re growing and they’ll make a mistake,” Hamilton said. “But they don’t make the same mistake twice.”
The play ended up flipping the switch on the season.
Now, a team that was crushed at home feels as though it will be a serious contender come playoff time.
“That (Troy) game left a bad taste in my mouth,” Brown said. “Sometimes the offense doesn’t click and the defense doesn’t click. We just shook it off and came out the next game with some attitude.”
Instead of starting 0-2, Rams parlayed the Ritenour win into 14-10 triumph at Lindbergh in Week 3. They bounced Hazelwood East at home 17-6 on Friday and carry plenty of momentum into Thursday’s contest.
Hamilton refuses to take any credit for the about-face.
“It’s my kids, they’re buying in and doing the work that it takes,” he said. “I knew we had the ability to compete with anybody on our schedule. We’ve been teaching them how to be better. The question was, ‘Were we going to commit to what it took to get there?’ ”
The answer has been a resounding yes.
“It’s just a gritty team and it’s fun to see them realize that just because we’re down, it didn’t mean we were out,” Hamilton said.
Explained Brown, “After that first win, the whole season changed. We got the swag back.”
Senior quarterback Jack Hensley leads the offense. He has completed 51 of 100 passes for 628 yards and two touchdowns.
Maddox Wolf, Trevor Walker and Trirease Edwards all have been receiving threats.
Marden, who is bound for Arizona State University, has a team-best 56 tackles.
Red Devils come up with answer
Veteran coach Antoine Torrey has suffered through some tough losses in his 15-year history with the Chaminade program.
But a 64-7 setback to powerhouse CBC on Sept. 12 was the worst of the 17 successive losses to the Cadets.
“It hit us hard,” Torrey said. “It was a little embarrassing, first home game, homecoming crowd. But it also woke us up.”
Chaminade rebounded with a 49-34 win over Vianney on Friday to get back on track.
The Red Devils take a 3-1 overall mark and a 1-1 league record into a Friday night meeting at Metro Catholic Conference rival De Smet.
“That win was something we needed to re-write the script,” Torrey said. “We were able to regroup quickly and get back to work. We took care of our own business and that’s what we set out to do. It was great to see.”
Quarterbacks Wynston Weiler and J’Mareon Barnes tossed two touchdown passes each against Vianney. Sophomore Hassan Robinson ran for 107 yards and spearheaded an offense that amassed 507 yards.
Barnes hit senior Brendan Sweeney on an 8-yard TD pass midway though the third quarter to put the Red Devils up 28-14. Junior defensive back Miles Lowe returned an interception 45 yards for a score in the final stanza to seal the triumph.
Chaminade knocked off McCluer North (42-19) and Poplar Bluff (14-7) over the first two weeks of the season before taking on CBC.
Torrey feels as though his team is on the right track and has the ability to make some noise in the postseason.
The Red Devils’ last 4-1 start, not counting the shortened COVID-19 season, came in 2019. The 2015 team reached the state championship game before losing to Fort Osage 63-28.
“Offensively, we’re clicking pretty well,” Torrey said. “I like where we are right now.”
Chaminade, a Class 5 school, is in District 3 along with Cardinal Ritter, Ladue and MICDS.
Tigers claim first win
Tradition-rich Edwardsville recorded its first triumph of the season by knocking off Belleville West 48-30 in a high-octane shootout at the District 7 Sports Complex on Friday.
The Tigers (1-3 overall, 1-0 conference) opened Southwestern Conference play in grand fashion with a strong offensive performance.
“We eliminated turnovers and got some of the unnecessary penalties out of the way,” Edwardsville coach Kelsey Pickering said. “Our offense has been really good all four games. We need to be better on defense.”
Edwardsville has racked up 128 points this season and has never scored less than 21 points in a game.
“We hope this is the start of something good,” Pickering said. “You get a win and it’s kind of a relief, if that’s the right word. And it was nice to start it in conference play.”
The Tigers did not panic despite the slow start to the campaign with losses to Chatham Glenwood, Jackson, Mo., and Lawrence Central, Indiana. They dropped their first three games in 2017 but rebounded to win nine of the next 10 before losing to Loyola Academy in the Class 8A semifinal round.
“We talked to the kids about the reality of situation and they know the rest of the way they’re all must-win games,” Pickering said.
The Tigers travel to Belleville East (4-0, 1-0) for a huge showdown Friday.
Record-setting performance
Seckman junior quarterback Brody Kube set a school mark with five touchdown passes in the Jaguars’ 53-0 win over Mehlville at home on Friday.
Kube hit on 10 of 16 passes for 228 yards.
He got the ball rolling with a 34-yard scoring strike to Cameron Benson just more than four minutes into the contest.
Kube then connected on three scoring strikes over the final 7 minutes and 3 seconds of the opening half to give his team a 40-0 lead. He hit Chance Ruble on a 31-yard TD pass on the final play of the second quarter.
The 6-foot-1, 203-pounder has 11 touchdowns without an interception in 67 attempts this season.
The Jaguars (3-1 overall, 2-0 Suburban Conference Orange Pool) play at Oakville (3-1, 2-0) on Friday night.
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Steve Overbey | Post-Dispatch
High school sports reporter
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