Tigers Take Class B Title, Beat St. Mary’s

One of the best stories in sports is a team going from worst to first.

Which is exactly what the Bishop Timon-St. Jude Tigers have accomplished. Defeating the St. Mary’s Lancers on Saturday afternoon by a 28-7 final score to claim the MMAA Class B title, it was the culmination of a lot of hard work and dedication according to coach Matt Weiser.

“It feels good,” Weiser said. “These guys have been working hard for a long time. It was a tough loss for us last year in the championship game so we used that as motivation.

“We fought through a little bit of adversity in the first half. We didn’t play our best, but we came back out in the second half, got some spark plugs from these guys and had a great final two quarters. It feels nice.”

A few short years ago, it was unfathomable that the Tigers would be in this position at all. Bishop Timon nearly dropped their football program, but after Weiser’s former college teammate Joe Licata helped revive the program the school has now won two Class B titles in the last four years.

“It’s special, what’s happened here,” Weiser said. “Joe’s still a good friend of mine and I was happy that he brought me on to help him start rebuilding this program. I give him all the credit in the world for what he was able to do when we first got here and I’m lucky to be able to grab on to what he started and just keep building this program.”

The Tigers got on the board first when DeMaris Pettiway-Scarver took a run 17 yards to the house midway through the first quarter.

An 18-yard touchdown pass from the Lancers’ Sherred Bernard to Aaron Kmiotek off a scramble to the right, however, ensured that the contest wouldn’t be a cakewalk.

With the score being so tight, one could forgive the Tigers if they weren’t feeling great about their chances at halftime. But Weiser rallied the troops.

“I challenged them at halftime,” Weiser said. “I told them that at this point that we can draw up all the crazy plays we want, but it all comes down to who wants it more and we made the big plays when we needed to.”

Late in the third quarter, the Tigers began to pull away. After a fumble by St. Mary’s within Timon territory, Clarence Prude scored on a 41-yard run to put Timon back on top, and Pettiway-Scarver got on the board again after finding paydirt from 23 yards out.

After exchanging fumbles, the Tigers sealed the deal after another rushing touchdown – this time by Gerald McCloud from 14 yards out. He, along with the rest of his teammates, were praised following the game by Weiser.

“The beautiful thing is we’ve got so many guys we can spread the ball out to. You can’t just focus on one,” Weiser said. “Dominic Anzalone is our quarterback and he’s done a really nice job orchestrating our offense as a freshman. He’s got pieces around him with McCloud, Pettiway-Scarver, James McNeil, Clarence Prude – it’s awesome to see those guys blossom and do what they do best.”

While winning the Class B title is a great accomplishment, Weiser said that team’s next goal is to get back to competing in Class A and win a championship there too.

“It feels great to win Class B, but as a competitor I always want to go bigger,” Weiser said. “If we keep doing what we’re doing with talented kids like these, I think we can eventually get to compete with those guys again.

“That’s always been my goal since I took over the program. I’m not here to just win the B league championship – I’m here to restore Timon back to what it once was.”