Carroll shuts down St. Joe’s Prep early, but can’t sustain it

RADNOR >> A lopsided score led to some choice words from Anthony Warnick.

The Archbishop Carroll senior took over Dan Connor’s postgame pep talk, once the coach had said his piece, and Warnick delivered a demonstrative message to his teammates. As perplexing as it may sound, Warnick liked what he saw in his team’s 38-6 loss to St. Joseph’s Prep.

Well, the first half of it, anyway.

Even the most ardent Carroll fans had to anticipate a final score that resembled Friday night’s, facing a team ranked No. 15 nationally by USA Today. What they (and Warnick) didn’t expect, however, was a particular first-half stretch in which Carroll’s defense produced four consecutive stops against St. Joe’s Prep.

Punt. Punt. Punt. Interception.

“We came out with fire,” said Warnick, Carroll’s co-captain and a two-way lineman. “We didn’t look at them as a nationally ranked team. They’re the same age as us, same size as us.

“We just let up in the second half — and that’s what the scoreboard says.”

Carroll (2-3, 0-2 Catholic League Red) surrendered four touchdowns after halftime, in falling to St. Joe’s (4-0, 2-0).

The Prep scored on its opening drive, by way of a 27-yard rush from Kolbe Burrell with 9:05 to go in the first quarter. For the rest of the first half, though, the Hawks were limited to just a 32-yard field goal.

So … what happened?

Carroll’s defense forced stops. A seven-play Prep drive stalled two yards shy of a first down, prompting a punt. On its next two series, the Prep went three-and-out. The Hawks recovered a bobbled return that gave them prime field position. But yet again, the Patriots stopped Prep on a drive that started 32 yards away from the end zone.

Prep quarterback Marquez McCray looked toward the goal line on a third-down pass into double coverage, and found Archbishop Carroll’s Zachariah Butler. The free safety’s interception ignited the Patriots’ bench.

If nothing else.

Carroll’s offense was stale in the first half, and couldn’t turn the defense’s solid play into anything worthwhile. The Patriots called 21 plays in the first half; all but seven went for one yard or less.

“We have to play a complete game,” Warnick said.

“Personally,” said Carroll linebacker Bobby Ferry, “I think the confidence got to us.”

Ferry alluded to how well the Patriots had played against Prep through the game’s opening 24 minutes and said it may have contributed to the team’s incomplete effort — and most certainly its second-half downward spiral.

“The confidence was good, but I thought we went to it too much and it hyped us up too much,” Ferry said. “We can go all in like that, but we have to stay true to who we are and what our coach wants from us.”

The Hawks managed four second-half touchdowns from four different players and stretched its depth chart to find playing time for three quarterbacks.

By the time Carroll running back Zlanweah Zarwie scored on a 38-yard touchdown rush, the mercy-rule running clock already had begun ticking.

“They are who they are, and we all knew that,” Warnick said of St. Joe’s Prep. “They command respect because they’re nationally ranked. I don’t even think we expected to stop them (on four consecutive possessions) like that. We thought they’d come out guns blazing. But as you and everyone here saw, something is working for us. It might not be perfect, but we’re headed in the right direction.

“We just have to finish games.”

The Patriots may not have needed to learn that lesson from the reigning PIAA Class 6A champions, though a refresher on the subject, with five games remaining in their schedule, certainly may help.