Xavierian had both its first scrimmage and its first game canceled because of thunderstorms, but when the players finally stormed onto the gridiron on Sept. 12, they brought their own thunder.
The Clippers defense showed little sign of rust as it had a big second half to defeat Xavier 20–14 in a non-league football game last Friday night at Aviator Sports Complex.
Xaverian coach Mike Jioia was ecstatic with his team’s play, considering some of the changes the staff made coming into this season.
“The way we went through the offseason, new weight-lifting program, new offense, a new defense, to have it come out like this is just unbelievable,” Jioia said. “This was the first time we hit. We had no scrimmage and our game last week got canceled.”
Xaverian set the tone on defense for the second half. Senior Zach Salvato picked up a fumble and took it 35-yards for a score in the third quarter. The two-point conversion pass from Phil Depaulis to Anthony Bianchi tied the score at 14–14. Salvato and the Clippers defense knew they had to pick up their game after the break.
“We were in the locker room and we said we had to get it together. We had to push them around and we got our stuff together,” he said.
The Clippers defense also set up the game-winning score. On fourth and five from the Xavier 10-yard line, the pressure from Louis Springer and Gabriel Wilson helped force a botched snap that set up the Xaverian offense at the Xavier one.
Depaulis, a junior, punched the ball into the end zone on the next play. The Clippers went up 20–14. Depaulis wanted the ball in that important situation.
“I put in the request to get that play run and it worked out,” he said.
The Xaverian defense was tested one more time. Xavier had it fourth-and-two from the Xavierian nine with less than three minutes left in the game. The defense came up big once again. Robert Massucci and Tyler Steward were the first to get to Xavier running back Callahan Ciriacks and stop him short of the first down. Salvato said the last stand was about teamwork.
“We knew we had to stick together,” he said. “We knew we couldn’t take any stupid penalties. We just worked together as a team.”
The Xaverian offense scored their first touchdown of the day when Depaulis hooked up with Bianchi for a 14-yard score with 2:30 to go in the first quarter. Xavier responded with two scores of its own. Ciriacks ran the ball for a 10-yard score to put the Knights ahead 7–6 early in the second quarter. In the waning seconds of the first half, a pass from Depaulis was intercepted by Ryan Fitzpatrick, who returned it for a touchdown to make it 14–6.
Despite looking shaky at times in the first half, the defense came together to give the Clippers a win.
“That put us over the top,” Jioia said. “I made a couple of bad calls in the end zone that led to the interception for a touchdown. The defense put in a bad situation like that played well.”
