It didn’t take long for the St. Joseph Fighting Irish to pick themselves back up on their feet, and senior Greg Fore did lots of the heavy lifting.
After suffering a disappointing 7-6 loss to Washington School in last week’s season opener, the defending state champion Irish came back on Friday and shutout visiting Clinton Christian 16-0.
Fore's first big play was when he punted the ball inside of the Clinton Christian 5-yard line midway through the first quarter. Fore then intercepted a Warrior pass on the Warriors next possession. Fore then would cap off three big plays in a row when he darted the the middle and caught a pass from sophomore quarterback Victor Baker and raced into the endzone for a 9-yard score. 230-pound junior Quay Nash bulldozed in the extra point to put St. Joe up 8-0.
“Last week wasn’t a good week for us but we came back and played hard and showed everyone that we were still here. This shows that we are still state worthy and we are coming to play some ball,” Fore said.
Fore added another interception to seal the victory with 2:45 left in the fourth quarter.
Said Fighting Irish Coach John Baker, “Greg is a great football player, and he has been making those type of plays for a number of years.
“We played a lot better than we did last week, which was nice to see. We cleaned up a lot of mistakes.”
Baker added his team’s victory Friday was against a Class 4A Clinton Christian School that plays in a higher classification in the MAIS than do his Class 3A Fighting Irish. This victory over a higher-class team gives St. Joseph important Power Points that will be used for state playoff seeding.
The St. Joseph defense, anchored by 6-foot-5, 276 pound defensive end Alex Foster, was stout all night but came up especially strong when it ended a Warrior drive at the two-yard line with less than two minutes left in the first half.
St. Joseph’s Deatrin Cooper finished off the game’s scoring in the early moments of the third quarter by intercepting a Clinton Christian pass at midfield and taking it to the endzone. Another Quay Nash two-point conversion run put the Irish up 16-0.
St. Joe’s Maurice Thorton added a key fumble recovering to stop a promising Warrior drive in the third quarter. A combined sack by John Haggard and Mikael Jones ended another Clinton Christian drive with eight minutes left in the game. Solid running by Nash and senior running back AJ Hill helped the Irish run off much of the clock in the second half.
The Fighting Irish will have a bye next Friday and will return to the field on Sept. 1 with a road game against Riverside.
