Saint Stephen’s unable to keep up with Community School of Naples in second half of 35-21 loss

Saint Stephen’s ran out of gas as they dropped their home opener to Community School of Naples 35-21 on Friday night in what started out as a back-and-forth game.

The Falcons came out strong, even taking an early 14-7 lead in the second quarter following a 51-yard touchdown pass from Fred Billy to Alex Virgilio.

Unfortunately, it was all down hill from there for Saint Stephen’s as the Seahawks went on to score four unanswered touchdowns.

“We were right there with them, we just failed to execute down the stretch,” Falcons head coach Tod Creneti said. “I preach to my guys it’s only a loss if we don’t learn from it, we are resilient and we will be better for it.”

Billy had a hand in all three Saint Stephen’s touchdowns. He passed for 167 yards and two touchdowns and also rushed for 86 yards and a score. However, it was his costly interception that was returned for a touchdown with 4:11 left in the fourth quarter that ended any chance of a comeback.

“That loss is solely on me, I didn’t show leadership, I didn’t show poise and I let my team down,” Billy said. “(The team) followed me and as I started breaking down, we started breaking down as a team.”

Demetrius Davis was able to snag three passes from Billy for 71 yards and a touchdown in the loss.

The Seahawks were led by quarterback Cooper Weiss, who finished the game with 184 yards passing, 117 yards rushing and four total touchdowns.

“We ran a lot of read-options and I was able to make some good decisions to give us a chance to win,” Weiss said. “For me it comes down to backyard football, just making the instinctive play.”

Robert Devito finished with 54 yards on 14 carries, while Joe Lang caught three passes for 85 yards for the Seahawks.

Community School of Naples outscored Saint Stephens 21-7 in the second half with their mixture of read options and deep passes.

“That’s a great team over there, they executed well against us in the first half, but we made the right adjustments at halftime and the guys did what they were asked to do,” Seahawks head coach Paul Selvidio said. “They keyed in on our motion offense so we took care of that, combined with key turnovers and we were able to get a solid win.”

This story was originally published August 27, 2016 at 2:34 AM with the headline "Saint Stephen’s unable to keep up with Community School of Naples in second half of 35-21 loss."