Top performances from Week 3 for St. Louis area high school football players. Statistics need to be reported directly in datacenter.statsonlin…
Time stood still Friday night for Phillip Arpasi.
The Fort Zumwalt North senior quarterback unleashed a long pass as the seconds clicked down in the rivalry football contest against Fort Zumwalt West.
He spied his favorite target Garrett Schaeffer wide open in the end zone of the tie game.
“When I threw it, it felt like the ball stayed up there for an hour,” Arpasi said.
Added Schaeffer, “I thought it would never come down.”
It did.
Right into the waiting arms of Schaeffer as the horn sounded to give the Panthers a dramatic 27-21 win in front of an ecstatic home crowd.
“Been through a lot of games,” said Fort Zumwalt North veteran coach Joe Bacon, who is in his 29th season with the program. “Never seen anything like that. Just amazing.”
The Panthers (2-1) capped a second-half rally with an improvisational play that will go down in the annals of fantastic area football finishes.
The 33-yard scoring toss triggered a massive celebration as all 11 players jumped atop Schaeffer to form a huge dog-pile.
“I couldn’t breathe for a while,” Schaeffer said. “But I didn’t care.”
The play did not go as planned.
Bacon called for a short 10- to 15-yard pass and a quick step out of bounds to set up a game-winning field goal attempt.
But Zumwalt West (1-2) went with an all-out blitz that forced Arpasi to scramble out of the pocket. He dodged a trio of defenders before spying Schaeffer in the left corner of the end zone.
“I dropped back and my first option didn’t seem too open,” Arpasi said. “There were a few guys from West coming right at me. So I decided I had to improvise and make something happen. I bounced around and just tried to stay on my feet and keep my eyes on the field.”
Schaeffer had to focus on making the catch, which was not easy even though he was alone.
“I was just waiting for that ball to come down,” Schaeffer said. “It wasn’t as simple as everyone thinks. I tried to cloud out all of the stuff and go back to the muscle memory of what I’ve been taught to do.”
Arpasi and Schaeffer live in the same neighborhood and have been lifelong friends. They practice and work out together over the summers. Schaeffer said he has caught “at least a thousand” passes from Aprasi over the years.
But none as memorable as the one Friday night.
“The whole thing was euphoric,” Schaeffer said. “It was exhilarating, watching the crowd go crazy and my teammates patting me on the back and jumping all over me.
“This was something I’ll never forget.”
Bacon deflected credit for the play to Arpasi, who scrambled around and bought some time for his receiver to get open.
“I had almost nothing to do with it,” Bacon said. “That was our kids making a play when nothing was there. They knew what to do when a play breaks down. It was their instincts that made it happen.”
Fort Zumwalt North junior running back Cameron Sherman tied the game 21-all on a 16-yard TD run with 3 minutes and 9 seconds left.
The Panthers’ defense then dug in and stopped the Jaguars to get the ball back in the final minutes.
Arpasi led a ground attack with 153 yards rushing on 20 attempts. Sherman carried the ball 10 times for 112 yards.
The win might just kick-start the Panthers to more success. Bacon likes to play high-powered opponents for his three non-league games before heading into GAC play. The Panthers opened the campaign with a 34-26 win over Pattonville before losing at Francis Howell 28-7 on Sept. 5.
“We did take a big step, and I think we’ll be able to improve on this for the rest of the season,” Schaeffer said. “Can’t promise any more endings like that though.”
Cardinal Ritter gets first win in huge fashion
Brennan Spain was not about to press the panic button.
Sure, the Cardinal Ritter football coach was not happy after his team lost its first two games to Jackson (23-20) and CBC (34-12).
But he knew the setbacks, which came against top-notch schools that are larger in enrollment, would serve as lessons for the future.
“I knew these guys were going to get it together,” Spain said. “It just took a while for them to understand what we were asking of them. It all came down to execution.”
Ritter went out and won 50-0 at home against Francis Howell for its first triumph of the year.
Manny Ellis ran for 182 yards and Terrance Jones added 142 yards as the Lions amassed 521 yards on the ground. Quarterback Rylan Moore hit on 12 of 18 passes for 303 yards and four touchdowns.
The Lions won back-to-back state titles in 2022 and 2023.
“I always say these first nine games are like a practice test,” Spain said. “Then, Week 10 is the official test. So you’ve got nine weeks to work out anything you need to work out.”
East wins battle of Belleville
The Lancers scored 24 successive points in the second half to knock off Althoff 31-17 in a crosstown battle at East on Friday.
“They’re definitely part of the town with us and we know all their guys and we grew up with them,” Belleville East coach Michael Harrison said. “Any opportunity to play your friends, your cousins, your little league teammates, it’s great for both sides.”
The teams are playing for only the second time this century.
Althoff won last year’s contest 49-21 on the way to a Class 1A state championship and an unbeaten record.
East improved to 3-0 by reversing the result.
“We had a little payback on the brain,” Harrison said. “To be able to say we knocked off a defending state champion is a pretty good highlight for us.”
The Lancers went 6-4 last season. Three of their losses came to eventual state champions Althoff, East St. Louis and Wilmette Loyola Academy.
Belleville East welcomed back senior starting tailback Jaedon Beamon against Althoff. He rushed for 82 yards on 12 carries after missing the first two games due to an ankle injury.
Senior Josh Ware led the way with 138 yards on eight carries including touchdown runs of 51 and 39 yards in the third quarter.
The return of Beamon gives the Lancers a one-two punch in the backfield. They have always emphasized the run and this season they have two backs capable of 100-yard games at any time.
“Starting 3-0, we’re excited about that,” Harrison said. “But we play in the Southwestern Conference, and it’s as tough as you’re going to find anywhere in the state. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
The Lancers also won their first three games in 2023. The last time they opened the season 4-0 was in 2019, when they started out 5-0 on the way to a 10-3 mark.
Althoff, which has been bumped to Class 3A this season, had a 16-game winning streak snapped.
Webster Groves builds win streak
The Statesmen knocked off Parkway South 51-13 on Friday to record back-to-back wins for the first time since Sept. 14-29, 2023.
The triumph also put Webster Groves (2-1) above the .500 mark for the first time since Nov. 1, 2019.
It knocked off Hazelwood West 28-12 in Week 2.
Webster Groves, which had losing streaks of 21 and 15 games over the past decade, rode the arm of quarterback Will Travers to the win on Friday.
Travers hit on 13 of 19 passes for 256 yards and four touchdowns. He connected on scoring strikes to Jonas Fagin and Keelen McDonald in the first quarter. Fagin also caught 64-yard scoring strike in the second period to push the lead to 28-7.
Highland gets forfeit win after schedule snafu
Highland (2-1) picked up a forfeit win on Friday.
The Bulldogs had scheduled a game against Soldan, which subsequently entered into a co-op with Gateway STEM, which already had a game on the schedule against Clayton. Gateway STEM beat Clayton 34-8 to improve to 3-0.
Highland athletics director Clint Hamilton received permission from the IHSA to put the game in the record books as a 13-0 win.
“We tried to find a game to fill it in with, but it was way too late,” Hamilton said.
Highland will open the final season of Mississippi Valley Conference play at home against Jerseyville (1-2) on Friday night.
The Bulldogs are scheduled to move to the South Seven Conference next season.
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Steve Overbey | Post-Dispatch
High school sports reporter
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