CRUSADERS MANHANDLE MARAUDERS FOR 12TH STRAIGHT TIME

The Canisius Crusaders emerged victorious over the St. Joe’s Marauders on Saturday afternoon at the Stransky Memorial Complex in West Seneca by a 45-28 score.

It’s the 12th consecutive victory over their longtime archrival and the 22nd time in the last 23 games the Crusaders beaten St. Joe’s. Which begs the question – how was Canisius able to gain the upper hand yet again?

The answer lies in their two running backs. Junior Elijah Kimble and senior Amir Hernandez combined for seven touchdowns on the day, and coach Kraig Kurzanski counted his blessings after the game ended.

“Having two guys who could both be Division I running backs at the college level is outstanding,” Kurzanski said. “We had some injuries at quarterback leading up to this game, so we knew that if we put Elijah and Amir in the backfield at the same time that we would have two viable options back there. It worked out ok.”

An 83-yard run by Kimble kicked off the scoring for the Crusaders a few minutes into the first quarter but the Marauders struck back on an 18-yard touchdown pass from Brendan Keil to Jay Ostrander. Not even a minute later, Hernandez helped Canisius retake the lead on a 61-yard dash of his own to the end zone and Kimble struck again shortly afterwards on a 73-yard run to paydirt.

Gallery by Emily Croisdale/WNYAthhletics

Kimble, a finalist for last year’s Connolly Cup, also ran his way into the record books on that 73-yard play by becoming the program’s all-time leading rusher. His performance allowed him to surpass Qadree Ollison, a 2014 graduate who then embarked on a five-year collegiate career at the University of Pittsburgh and later on enjoyed a five-year stint in the National Football League.

“It validates what we're doing as a program and it validates Elijah's career,” Kurzanski said.

“It's a pretty impressive record because before 1975 or 1980, we didn't really throw the ball so a lot of guys had a chance to get a lot of yards on the ground and he has surpassed them all. I'm proud of him and I'm proud of what he's becoming as a man. 

“It wasn't always like that for him, but he's buying in. He's listening to what we’re saying, he understands that his future is using football as the vehicle to get to what he wants to go and he's a good teammate. I enjoy having him.”

Kimble credited his teammates for his success.

“It feels great,” Kimble said. “I’m just thankful for all the guys I’ve played with throughout the three years I’ve been here. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here.”

The two weren’t done, however. Hernandez and Kimble increased the lead to 32-7 after scores from two and 65 yards out, respectively, and while the game appeared to be over at that point the Marauders thought differently.

After Brayden Manns replaced Brendan Keil at quarterback, he hooked up with Camrhyn Chinn for a short touchdown and a fumble returned to the house by Davion Becker got St. Joe’s right back in it. But Hernandez had other ideas by effectively ending the game by finding the end zone twice more.

“Everybody up front came to play today,” Hernandez said. “It’s all about just trusting our offensive line and hoping that they're going to open the hole. And they always do.”

Kurzanski also heaped praise upon sophomore fullback Dallon Floyd for his blocking ability.

“(Floyd) should get a lot of the credit today because he blocked well,” Kurzanski said.

“Every play that we ran for a long ways was just old school ‘power’, where you kick out the end with the fullback. That little dude’s only 5’7” and 185 pounds, but if you watch the film he's the unsung hero that nobody sees.”

While the Crusaders are the defending Monsignor Martin champions and are getting better game by game, they’re not quite where they want to be yet. According to Kurzanski, there are multiple areas in which Canisius can improve.

“I think we need to clean up penalties, our kicking game is atrocious and we still have to defend the run a little bit better,” Kurzanski said. “We can't live with guys who just gash you down the middle of the field, and that's happened to us twice this year.

“But we're getting better. We're young. We have two offensive linemen who are seniors and our quarterback’s a senior, but all of our perimeter players on offense and three linemen are juniors or sophomores. On defense, we start nine underclassmen. So we're building this for the future, and our JV is as good as I've had in my career. It’s promising.”