By: Ken Roberts
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| Photo by Eric M. Lunsford |
BELLEVILLE • Belleville West slammed the door on its 80-year-old city rivalry with Althoff in spectacular fashion Friday night.
Antoine Davis rushed for 174 yards and one touchdown and Brian Hill had 147 yards and four scores as the Maroons throttled the visiting Crusaders 53-20 in a non-conference game in front of an estimated crowd of 3,000.
West improved to 2-0 and holds a 47-28-3 overall advantage since the rivalry started in 1933. Althoff, No. 2 in the STLhighschoolsports.com small-schools rankings and No. 5 in the Associated Press Illinois Class 4A state rankings, fell to 1-1.
“It's a tough rivalry, and we love playing those guys and they love playing us,” said Maroons coach Cameron Pettus, whose team collected 568 yards of offense. “They brought it tonight. That offense with (quarterback Eric) Mertens had us throwing it around and they had our defense on its heels a couple times.”
But it was West's ability to score at will that had the Crusaders on their heels throughout the contest.
The Maroons went up 7-0 on a 10-yard run by Davis with 5 minutes 28 seconds to go in the first quarter. Austin Seibert added the extra point.
Althoff made it 7-6 on a trick play with 1:42 left in the quarter. Mertens completed a short pass to Keenen Young, who then lateraled the ball to Malik Easley, who scored easily from 25 yards out. But the extra point attempt went awry on a bad snap.
After that, West poured it on with touchdowns from Hill (1 and 48 yards) and a 16-yard scamper by quarterback Sherand Boyd. Seibert added a 35-yard field goal with 8.9 seconds to go in the half as the Maroons held a 30-6 advantage at halftime.
“We were really excited about the game,” said Hill, who also had scores of 14 and 75 yards. “We thought we would be able to run the ball since Collinsville (which Althoff beat 23-21 last Friday night) had so much success. I wasn't expecting four touchdowns.”
Althoff made it 30-12 to start the third quarter when Mertens and Dennis Jackson combined for a five-yard TD pass. But West came right back as Boyd, who was eight-for-14 passing for 127 yards, found Brendan Saak for 21 yards, and Seibert added the point for a 37-12 lead with 9:41 to go in the third quarter.
For the game, Mertens was 32-for-55 for 386 yards and a touchdown.
Although the Maroons defense allowed 20 points, they did an excellent job keeping the Crusaders' ground game under wraps, allowing only 83 yards on the ground.
The two teams combined for 1,037 offensive yards.
“All week we had been stressing tempo, tempo, tempo,” Hill said. “Making the line get set even before the ref would blow the whistle. We expected a lot of yards and a lot of offense.”
As for the end of the rivalry, Hill was glad to be part of the last game.
“It was crazy. The fans were excited,” he said. “The teams, they were all good. We just had a good time.”
