The disappointment was palpable on his face. Disappointment twinged with a healthy bit of anger.
DePaul Prep’s varsity football coach Mike Passarella spoke to me a few minutes after talking to his team in the wake of the 41-7 loss to St. Viator on Friday, September 10, 2021.
“The biggest thing was defensively we missed a lot of tackles. Offensively, we did not move the ball. Three and outs. We keep going backwards. We put our defense in a tough spot. We had a good game plan. We just didn’t really execute it,” said Passarella.
“You could tell that we can play, but when it gets close, we just can’t compete,” Passarella continued. “We have not learned how to win. That’s the one thing we have to work on, just that growth.”
That’s basically true about the game as a whole but the first half but the first half was close. One had feeling that the game could go either way with St. Viator leading 13-7 when the teams went into the locker rooms.
The DePaul Prep Rams (2-1, 0-0 in ESCC Red) won the coin toss and elected to receive the ball. That showed me an aggressiveness and confidence that many teams give up these days preferring to get the ball opening the second half. The Rams took the ball but their opening drive stalled near midfield.
The St. Viator Lions (1-2, 0-0 in CCL/ESCC Purple) worked the ball down the field with their first possession. Junior running back Jake VanBooven took a handoff at the four yard-line around the right end and scored giving the Lions an early lead.
The Rams answered quickly on the next drive with a 73-yard pass from Grant transfer senior quarterback Chris Perez up the right sideline to sophomore wide receiver Lavelle Hardy. Perez hit Hardy in stride, and no one was near enough to stop him. Perez impressed the opening games of the season with impressive wins over Walter Payton College Prep and Ridgewood High School particularly throwing the deep ball.
Late in second quarter the Lions answered with another touchdown from VanBooven making the score 13-7 at the half.
St. Viator head coach Dave Archibald was on the opposite side from Passarella on the field and on the season. Archibald’s Lions lost two non-conference openers to tough teams. The opened against very strong 3-0 South Elgin team that handled the Lions 48-7. Last week the Lions lost a close game to Morgan Park 30-22.
“I told our guys we are a young team in ways. If we keep climbing, we have wins that we can get on this schedule. Tonight was a great momentum [builder] where they gained that belief in themselves. When we play the way we are capable of playing, we are going to be able to contend and win some big games,” Archbald said.
The early difference in the game was Viator’s Jake VanBooven. “Jake is a phenomenal athlete. He had an injury last season. The first couple weeks for him were weeks where he was growing in confidence. Tonight he showed his best performance as a running back. He is nowhere near his ceiling. You will only see him get better and better.”
The game turned in the third quarter. St. Viator’s VanBooven added a third rushing touchdown. The Rams’ Perez threw a late pick-six to St. Viator’s Sr. linebacker Carson Eggebraten. The Lions started passing and added two more fourth quarter passing touchdowns to put the game out of reach.
I could feel Coach Passarella’s disappointment because he apologized to me before the game for what his Rams were about to do to my alma mater. Having seen the growth in his program over the last few seasons and the amazing growth of DePaul College Prep, I believed him.
The Rams are close. They just need to take that final step and, in Coach Pass’s words, “learn how to win.”
League play begins next week with Leo. The season is young.
