St. Vincent topples Jefferson 27-14

The St. Vincent Indians scored 20 unanswered points and came away with a 27-14 road win over the Jefferson Blue Jays on Friday in Festus, Missouri.

"Any win's important, but when you're moving towards the playoffs, you want to be playing your best football. I believe that's what we're doing right now," St. Vincent coach Nathan Rowland said. "We've won three out of our last four games, and we're playing pretty well."

St. Vincent's Cole Steinbecker scored the first touchdown of the game on a 35-yard interception return in the first quarter, but Jefferson (4-5) answered with a pair of scores to take a 14-7 lead in the second quarter.

St. Vincent (3-6) responded with two touchdowns passes of its own, including one from quarterback Joe Whistler to David Camarillo, who set up the score with an interception. The Indians carried a 20-14 lead into halftime.

Whistler started the game 0 of 6 passing with an interception but responded by completing 8 of his final 11 pass attempts and finished with around 200 yards passing and three touchdowns. Trevor Lieble hauled in two scores for St. Vincent.

"He came over to the sideline and asked us to keep giving him opportunities," Rowland said about Whistler. "He's been a warrior for us all year. He probably runs as much as any quarterback in this area and just takes a physical pounding. He also puts a lot of zip on his ball and can throw some great passes. Tonight he just hit open receivers, and after they got the ball in their hands, they made some big plays."

Nick Mingione, David Camarillo and Nick Cissell each had an interception to lead the Indians' defense, which held the Blue Jays to less than 30 yards rushing in the second half after allowing more than 100 in the first half.

"They shut down their run game and forced a running team into doing something they don't like to do, which is throw the ball," Rowland said about his defense.

St. Vincent returns to action against Barat Academy in the first round of the Class 1 District 1 tournament next week.

"We're just stressing to worry about us. We've got to play our football," Rowland said. "If we play the way we're playing now, we have a good chance to make some noise in the playoffs."