Pinkerton football's defense regrouped on the fly in quarterfinal win against Bishop Guertin

There wasn't much time for the Pinkerton Academy football team to feel sorry for itself.

After Bishop Guertin scored with under five minutes to play in last Friday's Division I quarterfinal, it was still a two-point game and the Astros still needed to defend the ensuing two-point conversion.

While the Cardinals briefly celebrated the touchdown, the Astros regrouped.

Bishop Guertin quarterback Matt Santosuosso pitched the ball to running back Charlie Bellavance, looking for more room to run outside. Instead, Pinkerton's Patrick Waldron came flying down from the defensive secondary and made the tackle to help the Astros preserve a 14-12 win over the Cardinals.

"I know once they scored, and everybody was down for a second, we refocused," Pinkerton coach Brian O'Reilly said. "If they don’t get two points, they are going to win the game. That sounds arrogant, but you have to have the confidence that we’re going to drive the ball and not let them have it back."

It was the second time in the fourth quarter Pinkerton needed its defense to step up in that situation and make a stand.

The Cardinals got their first touchdown of the game on a 17-play, 80-yard drive that ate up 8 minutes and 49 seconds in the second quarter and made it a 14-6 game at halftime.

Bishop Guertin was doing more of the same in the second half, taking over at its own 20-yard line with 5:16 left in the third quarter to start what would be a 14-play, 78-yard drive. But on fourth-and-2 from the 3-yard line, Pinkerton stopped Santosuosso short of the first down, forcing the ball over on downs.

"I think it’s something our coaches instill in us from the beginning of the season, just having confidence on defense, especially in those situations," Pinkerton senior Cole Yennaco said. "So when we get there, our whole team is ready to go. We do a little bit of talking to get ready, but I think it’s something built into our mindset through the whole season."

But even with the stop, the Astros were in a tough spot on offense, taking over at their own 2-yard line. They were able to get the ball out to the 10, but went three-and-out and a short punt gave Bishop Guertin the ball at Pinkerton's 29.

It took the Cardinals seven plays to find the end zone, as Santosuosso connected with Ronan Balstreri for a 14-yard touchdown on fourth-and-6 with 4:35 to play.

"We had a massive stop down there," Bishop Guertin coach John Trisciani said. "That was big. To turn around and get a stop and then score that passing touchdown on the fourth down was huge. The issue on the extra point start, we’ve got to go for two and they obviously played it really well."

With the conversion stopped, Pinkerton turned to its offense to finish out the game. After taking a 14-0 lead with 9:29 remaining in the first half, the Astros had picked up just four first downs and run 19 plays.

"We had so much success to the outside earlier in the game, now that I look back on it, we should have started pounding away," O'Reilly said. "We did at the end, we had to in the end because we needed to move the clock."

Pinkerton did, keeping possession the rest of the game with a nine-play drive that included three first downs.

Although the offense put the finishing touch on the win, Yennaco felt it was the defense that did really came up big for Pinkerton.

"You want to always control the game and I feel as though we did that with our defense," he said. "We did it with our offense (at the end) when we were able to march down the field and kill the clock. With our defense only letting up 12 points through 48 minutes of football is very impressive."