Sports - High School

Friday, Oct. 30, 2009

Favre guides SSC to 8-4A title

BAY ST. LOUIS — Boomer Scarborough and Dylan Favre are two of the St. Stanislaus players who have endured the lean years, two of the Rockachaws’ seniors intent on bringing glory back to the school’s football program.

Consider it done.

Favre completed 21 of 29 passes for 360 yards and five touchdowns and added two more scores on the ground as St. Stanislaus pulled away for a convincing 56-33 victory over Purvis on Friday night at Brother Philip Memorial Stadium.

With the victory, St. Stanislaus (9-1 overall) earned the Region 8-4A championship, the Rockachaws’ second district title in school history. SSC will host Quitman in the first round of the playoffs next Friday. Purvis dropped to 7-3 overall and 5-1 in 8-4A play.

“It means everything to us. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” said Scarborough, who plays several positions on offense when he isn’t anchoring the SSC defense at linebacker. “We took some lumps in our old districts, but we’ve worked so hard for this. We came together as a group and finished it off tonight.”

St. Stanislaus took a modest 21-13 lead into the locker room at halftime, and the Tornadoes pulled to within two points of the Rocks on Corben Taylor’s 89-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open the second half. But the SSC defense turned it on in the second half, and the Rockachaws capitalized on Purvis’ problems with the kicking game to win decisively.

“We’ve just got a special group of kids, and they did the work in the offseason and over the summer,” SSC coach Forrest Williams said. “They believed in what they had to do and were willing to pay the price. Defensively, we really took over in the second half. Offensively, when we get going, we get going.”

Do they ever.

Favre threw across his body on a slip screen to Joe Klein for a 21-yard TD pass in the opening moments of the second half, and when the Tornadoes botched the ensuing kickoff, a pooch kick, Blake Morreale made the recovery for St. Stanislaus. Favre would push the Rockachaws’ lead to 16 points on a nifty 20-yard touchdown run, and he scrambled away from the Purvis rush to hit Klein for a 32-yard reception on a fourth-and-9 play from the Tornadoes’ 39-yard line.

The Tornadoes’ Nick Minor was injured on that play and left the stadium in an ambulance after a delay of about 15 minutes.

Scarborough then scored on a 3-yard run, and it was just a matter of how many points the Rockachaws would score in this game.

Favre threw TD passes to Kollin Cannon (49 yards), Krisjon Wilkerson (20 yards) Scarborough (14 yards) and Zander Romano (20 yards) before giving way to backup quarterback Bo Brennan with about eight minutes left.