St. Joe’s Prep Kicks Season Off With A Victory In Louisiana
The St. Joe’s Prep Hawks, who are two-time reigning Pennsylvania 4A Football State Champions, began their season Saturday with a victory over Evangelical Christian Academy in Shreveport, Louisiana.
The Hawks began their season with a bevy of question marks surrounding their team. The main question being how they plan to replace last year’s senior class, which contained many Division 1 players such as John Reid, Tom Johnson, and Jon Daniel Runyan.
According to head coach Gabe Infante, “Every team is like a jigsaw puzzle, and every year my job is to try to figure out how to put the pieces together, and to adapt my coaching style to each different team.”
It appeared that the coaching staff and the players adapted well to their new style of play in their victory Saturday. Both the Hawks’ offensive and defensive lines were surrounded by question marks coming into the game, but their defense could not have played better, shutting out their opponent, and their offensive line blocked very well, allowing junior captain D’Andre Swift, to rush for almost 150 yards and one touchdown.
The Hawks at practice last week before heading down to Louisiana. - PSD Photo
Another challenge the Prep's coaching staff faces is developing Kevin Shaw, who will be starting at quarterback for the Hawks for the first time as a senior. Shaw played well in the game, by rushing for the only other touchdown of the game in a 14-0 victory.
Looking forward, the Hawks have three more out-of-state games before Catholic League play begins. Next week’s matchup is against Don Bosco Prep from Ramsey, NJ. Don Bosco dominated St. Joe’s when the two played each other last year, but this year St. Joe’s looks to make it much closer, as Bosco is fresh off of a 17-7 loss to St. Joseph’s Regional (NJ), who the Hawks also play in a few weeks.
With teams like Don Bosco and St. Joe’s Regional on their schedule, it is evident that the Hawks play just about as tough of an out-of-state schedule as any team in the Philadelphia area.
“It’s important to play the best competition we can find, we’re always striving to be better,” said Infante.
That strategy seemed to work last year. After going 1-3 in their out-of-state games, the Hawks were physically and mentally prepared to face their Pennsylvania opponents, going 10-0 in in-state games en route to a second straight state title. The team feels that playing such high caliber competition will, just as it did last year, get the new players ready for the kind of talent they will face when the games start to count.
The Hawks enter the season ranked very highly in Pennsylvania, despite having a multitude of new players.
“We still have high expectations for this season,” said Infante.