St. Vincent football team drops district game to Valle

St. Vincent coach Paul Sauer said a key to his team's chances against defending Class 1 state champion Valle was how it started the game.

The Indians weren't able to produce the positive start they hoped for, and, as Sauer predicted, Valle raced out to a big lead on its way to a 48-7 Class 1 District 2 win.

"Well, they came out and they scored very quickly on a couple long touchdowns, and we kind of hung our heads and it got ugly from there," Sauer said in a phone interview after the game.

Valle scored all 48 of its points in the first half, putting 21 points on the board in the first quarter and another 27 up in the second.

"We kind of hung our heads early in the first half, and we kind of let the game get away from us," Sauer said.

Quarterback Tim Schumer completed 23 of his 38 passes for the Indians and finished with 184 passing yards. He also led his team in rushing with 75 yards on nine attempts.

"There was some bright spots," Sauer said. "Tim and the receivers did a good job and our offensive line, I thought, did a great job of giving Tim some time to throw the ball.

"Those guys, they were probably outmanned by 50 to 60 pounds per guy, and they did a really good job allowing us to even have a chance of throwing the football."

Schumer completed at 7-yard pass to Taylor Sauer in the third quarter for St. Vincent's only score. Schumer was intercepted once.

Sauer had seven receptions for 77 yards and led the Indians' defense with six tackles.

"Valle is one of those teams -- I think you've got to throw the football to beat them," Sauer said. But if you're not successful at it and you give them the ball, they're going to score quickly. It's kind of a Catch-22. You try to win the game throwing the football and they capitalize when you don't score. Then that's a big difference in the ballgame."

St. Vincent fell to 4-5 this season and 0-2 in district play. Valle improved to 8-1 and 2-0 in the district standings.

"They pretty well did what they wanted to do," Sauer said of Valle.

St. Vincent will host Cleveland NJROTC at 7 p.m. Thursday night.

Valle 21 27 0 0 -- 48

St. Vincent 0 0 7 0 -- 7