Live Broadcast of the St. Laurence @ St. Rita Varsity High School Football Game in Chicago, IL. Friday, September 13, 2013. Kick-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT.
The broadcast is brought to you by High School Cube.
St. Laurence Vikings (2-0, 1-0 Away) vs. St. Rita Mustangs (2-0, 1-0 Home)
Location: St. Rita High School’s Pat Cronin Field
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A 77th Street battle, always a good one to catch. St. Rita’s Tommy Mister will once again prove to be too much to handle as St. Rita will move to 3-0 this week.
Here is some history behind the match-up (via Sun-Times):
That’s the way it was throughout the decade of the 1970s for St. Rita and St. Laurence, arguably the two strongest programs in the state at that time. St. Rita won back-to-back Prep Bowls in 1970 and 1971 with Billy Marek and Dennis Lick, won the Prep Bowl in 1977 and a state championship in 1978. St. Laurence won three Prep Bowls in a row i 1973, 1974 and 1975, won a state title in 1976, won another Prep Bowl in 1978 and finished second in the Class 5A playoff in 1979.
In 1979, St. Laurence beat St. Rita 21-20 as strong safety Mark Hughes sacked Joey Gorman on a two-point conversion attempt with 2:42 to play, then intercepted a pass at midfield in the closing seconds to preserve the victory. It snapped St. Rita’s 26-game winning streak.
Dennis Arrigo’s 75-yard punt return gave St. Rita an 8-0 lead in the first quarter but St. Laurence rallied to build a 21-8 lead as Pete Neagle scored from the one to cap a 65-yard drive, reserve quarterback Garrett Ryan flipped a 73-yard screen pass to Mark Morrissey and Ryan’s 12-yard pass to John Kissane and Glenn Turro’s 31-yard run set up Morrissey’s one-yard TD plunge.
St. Rita rebounded as quarterback George Mach completed 13 of 19 passes for 140 yards in the second half. Completing six passes, he marched the Mustangs 66 yards before relinquishing possession at St. Laurence’s six. But Ed Duffy recovered Ryan’s fumble and Gorman scored from the two. After a punt, Mach capped a 62-yard drive with a 25-yard TD pass to Dave Moritz with 2:42 remaining, setting the stage for Hughes’ heroics.
“I thought they’d come at me. I watched them on film all week and I noticed they used that play a lot for two-point conversions,” Hughes said. “On that play, I’m supposed to go into the backfield as fast as I can and take on the blocker. But there was no blocker there so I got Gorman. They were making big plays against us and I was waiting for one of us to make a big play. Sooner or later, I knew we would make one.”
The following day, veteran sports columnist Bill Gleason wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times: “On successive days, I had the good fortune to watch two immensely satisfying spectators games. Take my word for it, St. Laurence/St. Rita was better than Southern California/Notre Dame.”
However, if one of the St. Laurence/St. Rita games ever plays on ESPN Classic, it will have to be the 1973 matchup. After losing to St. Rita 30-6 in Week 3, St. Laurence prevailed 26-20 in overtime in the championship game of the Catholic League playoff as Kevin King, a bruising 6-3, 210-pound fullback and the Chicago Sun-Times Player of the Year, rushed 30 times for 211 yards and two touchdowns.
Trailing 20-12 early in the fourth quarter after St. Rita’s Tony Suriano recovered a fumble and quarterback Mike Strimel ran 58 yards to score, St. Laurence bounced back as King scored on a 61-yard burst. On the two-point conversion, King was surrounded by three defenders and desperately flipped the ball to quarterback Mike Ahern, who ran untouched into the end zone to force a tie–and sudden death overtime.
“We were down by two so we had to go for two,” Ahern said. “We were going to run a regular option to the right. But I made a bad read. King got stood up at the line. He turned back and flipped the ball to me. I caught it with my left hand and went around left for the tie.”
Kavanagh, ever the maverick, won the coin toss but opted to go on defense. “We wanted to know what we had to do to beat them,” he said. After Mike Jank intercepted Strimel’s pass to end St. Rita’s possession, King ran for five yards, then four, then the final yard for the game-winner.
“The St. Rita game was bigger than the Prep Bowl,” said King, who ran for 127 yards and four touchdowns in St. Laurence’s 40-24 victory over Phillips in the all-city final.
“Today pales in comparison to what it was like in the 1970s,” summed up Ed Kozak, a 1979 St. Laurence graduate who has served as the school’s associate director of development for the last 10 years.
“There was overwhelming enthusiasm and great rivalries. The whole week built up in anticipation of a Sunday game. There was amazing coverage for the school and the Catholic League. There were big headlines, like the Bears, and the stadiums were filled. Pep rallies were held frequently in those days. Everybody wanted to know about the games.”
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