The St. Louis Varsity Football Team was victorious over their rival Pinconning 22-20, Sept. 7, on Pinconning’s home field.

“This team seems to be a close-knit group of young men who truly care about each other.  They are competitive amongst themselves, but yet unselfish at the same time. They celebrate each other’s successes and help pick each other up when things don’t go their way,” said Coach Aaron Munderloh.  

The Sharks went into this intense game 2-0, and were hungry for another win. With a packed fan section, the boys fought until the very end. In order for this win to happen the boys worked together as a team and never gave up. Quarterback Cameron Mizer had an outstanding game with 232 total offensive yards, with 175 of that being rushing yards — including a 67-yard game-winning touchdown run late in the fourth quarter, with 3:30 left on the clock. Mizer also ran in another touchdown and had another passing touchdown throughout the game. Mizer was also crowned player of the game that Friday night with all of his outstanding statistics.

“I know it’s cliche, but we really could not have done it without the fans. The energy from all of the fans and the student section really hypes us up on the field. We were going out there pretty confident and well-prepared. Our coaches always put us in the situation to win, but it always depends how we play on Friday nights. We were the first to score and that got us pretty excited. The rest of the game was back and forth and a real nail biter, but we came back to win in the fourth quarter.” Mizer added “the newspaper and hudl recap and all of that will talk about myself and that 67-yard touchdown run, but what they don’t really talk about is how hard the team worked all game. Pinconning is the toughest team we have played so far, and you could tell. The offensive line really stepped up their game in the fourth quarter allowing us to run the ball as much as we needed and we ended up driving the field on a couple of drives. This is one of the greatest teams I have ever been apart of, and I wouldn’t want to spend this season with anyone else. We’re all we got, but we’re all we need.”

Additionally, Trae Garcia, and Jordan Lowe, both had outstanding games offensively making it into the top three offensive players of the game. Defensively, the Sharks also had a few critical players. For example, Michael Hrabal, had a great game and accounted for 10 tackles, including four tackles for loss. Garcia and Ryan Downs also played a huge role in the defensive game, and all three were named as the top three defensive players of the game. On special teams, Garcia had a couple critical punt returns, including one late in the game that gave St. Louis an excellent starting field position offensively.

The boys have been very successful in the beginning of the season as well. To kick off, they beat Montabella on their home field 28-12 Aug. 23. Additionally, they added another win to the books hosting the Valley Lutheran Chargers on Aug. 30. They defeated the Chargers 32-7. The Sharks next take on the Hemlock Huskies Sept. 14, at home.