GAINESVILLE – Threatening summer-like skies couldn’t keep several hundred fans from attending Friday night’s spring game between St. Joseph Academy Flashes from St. Augustine and the Oak Hall Eagles.
With the rules set of no kickoffs and no rushing on point after attempts or punts, the teams would either start their drives at their own 35-yard line after a team scored or with the start of possesion for the half. On punts the drives would start where ever the ball was caught or landed at.
St. Joseph started with the opening possession of the game and things went down hill quickly for the Flashes as the fumbled the ball on the second play of the game. With Oak Hall recovering, the Eagles were set up with great field position to score the first points of the game. However, that was not to be as the Flashes defense was able to force the Eagles to go three and out very quickly.
It would not be until close to the end of the 1st quarter before St. Joseph would finally put together a drive that would put the first points of the night on the board as QB Matthew Considine found an open Noah Thift for a 20-yard touchdown reception to put the Flashes up 7-0.
Oak Hall got the ball back following St. Joseph’s touchdown, and was able to pick up a first down, but was quickly shut down once again by St. Joseph as they were forced to punt. However, with St. Joseph’s next drive the Eagles allowed the Flashes to start driving again, getting to midfield before finally putting on the brakes and forcing them to punt.
St. Joseph would get the ball back once again after another Oak Hall three and out and it wouldn’t take long for the Flashes to make something happen as Considine once again threw a touchdown pass for 36 yards to help lift the team up a 14-0 advantage, a lead St. Joseph held on to at halftime.
Both teams came back out for the second half with Oak Hall looking refocused after gaining some momentum on a drive before half time that stalled. As such the Eagles took that momentum they found and used as they pounded it out with the ground game that was capped with a 9 yard touchdown run with just under seven minutes left in the half.
With a running clock as decided by the coaches before the start of the game, the third quarter quickly came to a close with St. Joseph leading still by a score of 14-7.
It wouldn’t be until about nearly four minutes in that St. Joseph would score its last touchdown of the night after marching 52 yards down the field to take a 20-7 lead over Oak Hall that was capped off with an eight-yard touchdown down carry by Nate Cruz.
With the last minutes closing in, Oak Hall was able to find the end zone one more time as the were able to run in the ball from about 22 yards out to cut the lead to 20-14, which would be the final score of the night.
Overall both teams threw no interceptions, but St. Joseph finished the night two total turnovers, both the results of fumbles that landed in the hands of the Eagles. Offensively St. Joseph finished with roughly 231 yards of total offense compared to Oak Hall’s 186 yards of total offense. Most of Oak Hall’s offense came in the second half the game whereas St. Joseph was equally balanced in all four quarters.
Both teams will head in to the summer with workouts and will once again meet each other this fall in a North Florida Football Conference – South Division contest on a date to be determined.
