St. Thomas football surges in second half to beat Milford

MILFORD - St. Thomas High School football coach Scott Bray knew the Saints would have a battle on their hands Friday night and that’s exactly how the first half played out.

Playing on their home field on senior night, Milford scored a touchdown late in the second half to cut the Saints’ lead to 19-14.

But St. Thomas senior running back Kenny Avery ran for 195 yards and four touchdowns on 22 carries, including a 58-yard touchdown in the third quarter, and Saints sophomore quarterback Anthony Semprini (3 for 6, 43 passing yards) threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to senior Breydan Sanchez (41 yards on two catches, 52 yards on two carries) in the third quarter as St. Thomas pulled away for a 32-14 victory on Friday night.

Avery scored a 13-yard touchdown midway through the first quarter and ran around the edge to the corner of the endzone on a 4-yard run on the first play of the second quarter to give the Saints a 13-0 lead.

Milford sophomore running back Jace Wilhelmi (87 yards on 18 carries) punched the ball up the middle from the 1 to put the Spartans on the board with 6:47 left in the half.

Avery scored from inside the 1 on the next drive, but Wilhelmi blocked the kick to hold St. Thomas’ lead to 19-7 with 4:35 to go. The Spartans drove 75 yards over the next three and a half minutes, with Wilhelmi going up the middle from the 8 and freshman kicker Lucas Neubeck connected on the extra point to make it 19-14 with 1:03 left in the half.

St. Thomas (5-2) successfully recovered the squib kickoff, but Milford’s defense forced two incomplete passes and held Avery to just a 2-yard run, forcing the Saints to punt to end the half.

Forcing the punt was yet another small victory that continued to shift momentum in Milford’s favor, while the Saints, coming off a tough 39-13 loss to Trinity last weekend, lost some wind in their sails going into halftime.

“Their heads were hanging a little bit,” Bray said, referring to his players at halftime. “I told them, you guys gotta remember that you’re winning this game. We just need to make some adjustments. They pushed us around, but we expected them to push us around. We just need to do our jobs better, buckle down, and that’s what they did. I’m proud of the kids.”

With Milford (2-5) set to receive the kickoff in the second half, momentum could have continued to shift towards the Spartans. A roughing the passer penalty on St. Thomas gave the Spartans a first down, but Saints’ lineman Cole Masiello (sack, tackle for loss) and Paul-Christopher Corey (fumble recovery, sack) clogged the middle of the line on a Milford fourth-and-3, forcing a turnover on downs.

“I don’t think that we made enough plays in critical times,” Milford coach Max Morrelli said. “I think that there were some things that we knew were coming that we worked on, that I felt like we worked on. But when the time came in the game, we just didn’t quite make the play. St. Thomas has some talented players. We didn’t do quite enough to have (team) success, but we had a lot of really great individual efforts.”

The turnover on downs set up a short drive that led to Semprini’s touchdown pass to Sanchez to make it 26-14 with 5:09 left in the third. A quick three-and-out by Milford on the following drive gave St. Thomas good field position which Avery immediately exploited.

On just the second play of the drive, Avery broke a tackle and took off down the home sideline, juking three Milford defenders near the 10 to reach the end zone on a 58-yard score.

Trailing 32-14 with 2:29 left in the third, Milford’s sophomore quarterback Jacob Hill (5 for 12, 62 passing yards) moved the ball well, picking up three first downs and driving to the St. Thomas 27, but Hill’s pass into the red zone was intercepted by Saints’ junior Ryan Jones in the first minute of the fourth quarter.

“It was important to bounce back (from the Trinity loss), but like I told the kids, the thing I’m more proud of is that we knew (Milford) was going to fight,” Bray said. “We watched them on film. They battle. They play a real tough game of football. They came out and they moved us around in the first half.

"We went inside (the locker room) before the second half and said ‘Guys, there’s nothing magical on a whiteboard. This all comes down to where you are character-wise.’ So I was really happy with how they responded in the second half.”