With 38 seconds left in the first half from the Lion 45 yard-line and the score DePaul Prep 17, Leo 14, the Rams called a play they had practiced all week and that they intended to open the game with. The old “hooking ladder.” A hook by the wide out and a lateral pass to the running back out of the backfield and up the sideline to the end zone.
It worked to perfection. The finest execution of the play that I have seen in my 100 years of watching football.
Rams’ junior quarterback Fernando “JuJu” Rodriguez tossed a quick short pass, a hook, to junior wide receiver wide receiver Nicholas Hathcoat drawing up the Leo free safety. Hathcoat gathered it in, and with a Leo defender draped all over him, pitched the ball to senior running back Titus Bautista sprinting out of the backfield. Bautista grabbed the perfectly placed pitch at full speed and dashed up the sideline. No one had any chance at all to catch him.
Leo was done after that. They had nothing left for the second half. Beaten physically and mentally, the game spiraled into penalty after penalty after penalty.
Rams 38, Lions 14.
DePaul Prep improves to 2-2 on the year and will face No. 14 ranked Providence at home next Friday.
