Senior moments can be great times of celebration and joy.
As was the caser Friday night when the Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin Lions secured a spot in their playoff push, celebrating Senior Night by defeating another expected playoff team, Parma-Padua, by a score of 28-14.
The Lions (8-2) finished No. 4 in Division 3, Region 9 and will host No. 5 Alliance (9-1).
NDCL is the only football team in Geauga County to qualify for the OHSAA playoffs.
As has usually been the case for the Lions, especially under coach Andrew Mooney, the defense keyed the win, limiting the visitors to just 245 yards of offense, and 66 of those came on the last drive of the game.
Padua also played some stifling defense, limiting the Lions to 212 yards total offense, with 161 of that coming from the legs of tailback Josh Peroni.
Peroni’s big night wasn’t planned, but it was prepared for. The senior took over the bulk of the attack for the Lions after Manny Malone was injured on the first play from scrimmage.
Malone did return to the game defensively and was moving fairly well after the game.
“I’m hoping it’s nothing too serious,” the senior tailback and defensive end said after the game. “We think it’s just a miniscus problem, but it’s sore and I was able to get back in the game on defense pretty quickly. With the depth we have on our team, though, Josh picked up right where we needed him to running the ball, I expected that to happen, so I really wasn’t needed that much.”
Peroni’s 9-yard run early in the second quarter provided the only score of the first half in this defensive struggle.
The tone for the game had been set on the first possession of the game. After Gabe Brkic did his thing with a booming kickoff for a touchback to start festivities, the Bruins (8-2) drove 76 yards on 12 plays to a fourth down at the NDCL (8-2) 5-yard line.
Trenton Cramer (19 carries, 84 yards) was greeted by a plethora of blue-clad players at the four on fourth down, and from there on out, NDCL was in fairly good control of the game.
The Lions scored their second touchdown on the first possession of the second half, again set up by Peroni.
He took a deep kickoff 5-yard line, sped down the right sideline and finally was pushed out of bounds at the Bruins 29-yard line. A holding penalty brought the ball back to the NDCL 41, where a penatly returned the favor at the Padua 41. Two Peroni runs got it to the 29 yard stripe, and Charles Forbes tossed a perfect pass in the back of the end zone to Brian Carney for the score and a 14-0 lead. Both of those players are also seniors.
After last week’s blowout loss to Akron Hoban, there may have been questions for the Lions faithful about how they would come out for this game, but Mooney was not seriously concerned.
“Hoban last week is just at a far different level than most teams,” he said. “We made some mistakes, but a couple questionable plays could well have gone our way, so we only were down maybe 28-0. We gave them a tough time, but they are just that good.”
He continued: “I told the kids last Saturday to just flush that game out of their systems and prepare for Padua, and they did a great job of it. We didn’t hang our heads at all, and that is important when you are preparing for playoffs. I have to give it all up to the guys up front tonight. We always try to take what defenses give us, and our guys up front were great.”
Seniors made big plays all night for NDCL.
On fourth down midway through the third quarter, Brian Carney took a direct snap from his blocking position and went 20 yards for a first down.
A 22-yard Peroni dash late in the game to set up the Lions attempt to score that was stopped was keyed when Zach Zienka pancaked a linebacker to open a hole that even a senior citizen sportswriter might have been able to run through.
Zienka knows his role and played it well. “We just wanted to take momentum any way we could tonight and play together as a team. I got in a couple good licks, everybody else did, too, and that’s what we try to be about.”
Mooney is confident in his tight ends when they are on the field.
“One of the things we expect is that our tight ends be a huge part of our blocking schemes in every game,” he said. “That goes for all of them, and they are huge in helping us to succeed.”
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