The St. Anthony football team knew if they wanted to win the Del Rey League, they’d have to beat St. Pius x St. Matthias and after not being able to play them last season, Friday night was a game that they had circled on their schedule.
The Saints proved to be up for the challenge as they defeated St. Pius x St. Matthias 21-14 in overtime when Jasiah Lolesio-Pua found himself in the right place for a tipped pass for a game-winning 14-yard touchdown.
“First off I want to give all glory to God,” Jasiah Lolesio-Pua said. “This whole week, we were locked in. We knew this was a good team and we knew we had to bring our best and we knew they underestimated us. So, that made us work harder and get us more prepared.”
Jasiah Lolesio-Pua was ready for the challenge and made an instant impact for the Saints as he had five catches for 101 yards and two touchdowns and was big defensively coming up with a fumble recovery.
“Coming into this one I was a little bit concerned,” St. Anthony coach Raul Lara said. “The one thing I was worried about was the line of scrimmage and the other one was can our defense handle all of their athletes.”
Early in the contest both defenses proved to be up for the tasked as they combined for five turnovers.
Jojo Apisala got the Saints going early as he three carries for 70 yards and an 8-yard touchdown on a drive that included a 63-yard run to get St. Anthony into Warriors territory.
The Warriors took a 7-6 lead in the first after Brady Shaffer connected with Jaylen Stokes for a 9-yard touchdown with less than a minute left in the first quarter.
St. Pius continued to hit on all cylinders to start the second half after Christian Harris had four carries for 33 yards that kickstarted a drive that included an 8-yard touchdown Shaffer kept it himself for an 8-yard touchdown.
After struggling with the pass early in the game, Perez found Jasiah for a 43-yard touchdown and converted the two-point conversion to tie the game 14-14 with 11:51 left in the fourth.
Along with a big push from the offense, St. Anthony’s defense came up big with two interceptions and a forced fumble. Landon Washington was one of the Saints that came up with a big goal line interceptions.
St. Anthony (5-2) will now turn their attention to their road trip against Harvard Westlake next Saturday.
