SV rolls past St. Pius on homecoming

It was an unusual game to say the least for the St. Vincent football team on Friday night. Not only was it the annual homecoming game, but a medical emergency pushed the opening kick-off back up to nearly 8 p.m., let alone an emotional game for the program as the team wanted to play well for a former player who passed away days before.
Amidst all that, the Indians stood tall.
St. Vincent played, “its most complete game in years,” according to coach Tim Schumer as it rolled past St. Pius 42-6 on Friday.
“Not only was it homecoming, which is one thing, but then you add everything with Jesse (Robinson), making sure we honored him,” Schumer said. “Then with everything that happened before the game, you never know what to do in situations like that. Our guys came out and played well. I was proud of how they handled everything.”
The defense was the calling card for St. Vincent on Friday as it held St. Pius to just six points and Lancer running back Justin Lehn, who came into the game with nearly 800 rushing yards, to zero yards on 20 carries. The Lancers ran the ball for 63 yards on 38 carries, with quarterback James Smith, being the most productive runner with 37 yards on seven carries. Smith did complete 9-15 passes for 150 yards and one touchdown in the game. However, the St. Pius offense was stymied from there.
“They had multiple formations, with wishbone and do some different things, and also had more open spread type things,” Schumer said. “We had to make sure we were ready for each look that they gave us. That comes from watching a lot of film and the guys focusing on the keys. We did a great job on all three levels of the defense, and covering each base.”
The Indians opened the scoring on their first drive as Clayton Gremaud ran for a 10-yard touchdown to go up 7-0 with 7:55 left in the first quarter. The scoring continued with a short shovel pass to Gremaud from Christian Schaaf in the second quarter and Schaaf later found Jacob Schremp for a 15-yard score to go ahead 21-0 with 4:22 left in the first half.
The Lancers scored on a 24-yard pass to get on the scoreboard with 46 seconds left in the second quarter.

The Indians regained momentum from the opening kick-off of the second half when Max Wheeler took an onside kick attempt and ran it all the way in for a touchdown.
“That’s the second time I’ve seen that happen,” Schumer said of the kickoff return,” Schumer said. “About five years ago it happened against Jefferson on homecoming. On film we had seen that St. Pius onside kicked before and with the way the game was going, we thought they might try it. They wanted to keep that momentum going. Thankfully, Max was there and the ball took the right bounce.”
Cruz Reitzel scored an 11 yard touchdown run and Simon Barber caught a 25 yard pass from Schaaf in the second half to complete the Indian scoring for the game.
“It was probably the best game we’ve played in two or three years, when you take into account playing a full game and executing from the very beginning. Up front we did a great job and took advantage of some of the looks they were giving us. It’s a good game to continue building on.”
The game did not come without extra emotion as all week with the football program did things to remember Jesse Robinson who died in a motor vehicle accident on Sept. 30. The team broke the huddle by saying his number 16 and marked the 39-yard line blue, which was another number he wore during his career, in his memory. Robinson was the captain of the football team his senior season and also homecoming king. Schumer said that the team wanted to honor him by playing well on Friday.
“The seniors we have now were freshmen and Jesse was a captain,” Schumer said. “We wanted to honor him with a moment of silence and the other small gestures that we did throughout the week. We also wanted to honor him on the field. I thought that the guys did the job with that too.”
St. Vincent will travel to Grandview this Friday at 7 p.m. with the hopes of another conference title on the line. Grandview and next week’s opponent Jefferson will decide if St. Vincent will claim back-to-back titles, as long as they win out.
“We control our own destiny in a sense for that, but we have to take it one game at a time and that starts this Friday with Grandview,” Schumer said.