St. Michael coach Philip Rivers calls senior Moe Faiupu his team’s best “football player.”
“He’s the one guy who truly doesn’t come off the field unless he just has to have a break,” Rivers said.
The Cardinals needed all Faiupu had Thursday night.
The 5-foot-10 senior scored four rushing touchdowns and Martin Corte added two more as St. Michael outlasted Orange Beach 49-41 at Fairhope Municipal Stadium in a key Class 4A, Region 1 game.
“Huge win,” Rivers said. “Losing to Bayside (17-14 on Sept. 2) hurt bad. It still hurts. This was huge to get this one to stay in the mix. We have Wilcox next week, then we have Jackson and (T.R.) Miller to finish. We’ll see what happens. We’ll be in it down to the last game.”
St. Michael improved to 4-3 overall and 3-1 in region play. Orange Beach fell to 4-2, 2-2 with its second loss in three games. Makos head coach Jamey DuBose said before the game that his team had been battling a flu bug all week and was without as many as 19 players Thursday night. He didn’t use it as an excuse, however.
“We couldn’t get them stopped,” he said. “They had a good running game. We had a short week due to some flu problems on the team, and I’m not blaming that. We came out and played hard. I think they had a really good plan to run the football at us. We couldn’t get the edge set and couldn’t get them stopped. When we did stop them, that seemed to be the series we sputtered on offense.”
St. Michael trailed only once – at 7-6 with 7:05 left in the first quarter on the first of three Cash Turner to Will Reddell touchdown passes. The Cardinals led by two touchdowns on multiple occasions but didn’t put a stranglehold on the win until the final drive of the game.
Turner and Reddell connected on a 7-yard TD pass with 1:59 left in the game to cut a 49-35 St. Michael lead to 49-41. However, the snap on the extra point was low and the kick never got off the ground. That would be crucial.
The Cardinals covered the ensuing onsides kick, but the game still wasn’t won. Orange Beach used all three of its timeouts and forced St. Michael into a fourth-and-three at the Mako 44 with 1:31 left in the game.
Rivers didn’t have to think long about his decision.
“There was no doubt,” he said. “I just said, ‘Hey guys, we ain’t punting.’ I mean they scored in like 30 seconds on some of those drives. (Defensive coordinator) Simon (Cortopassi) looked at me and said, ‘Don’t punt it.’ What does help the confidence in that call – obviously the guys – but also the fact that it was an 8-point lead. You know you aren’t losing in regulation.”
St. Michael gave the ball to senior Ezra Sexton.
His 28th carry of the night was good for exactly three yards.
First down. Ball game.
Sexton finished with 162 yards, including a 44-yard touchdown run.
Star of the game: Faiupu made the biggest plays when it mattered. He ran for 31 yards on 10 carries and caught four passes for 79 yards. He scored on TD runs of 10, 4, 2 and 4 yards.
“Moe played his tail off,” Rivers said. “He does a little of everything. He’s playing quarterback, then he’s blocking (Chris) Pearson, then the next time he’s carrying it and the next time he’s covering (John Wallace) Holladay. So, we ask him to do a lot.”
Play of the Game: In a game of big plays, it was Sexton’s 3-yard run for a first down with 1:31 left that sealed the deal.
Key sequence: St. Michael came up empty on a long third-quarter drive when UAB commit Chris Pearson blocked Sexton’s 27-yard field goal attempt, leaving the lead at a tenuous 34-28. However, the Cardinal defense held Orange Beach and forced a punt. Two plays later, they were in the end zone on Corte’s 36-yard run.
Pearson’s impact: UAB commit Chris Pearson was one of the Orange Beach players sidelines for much of the week with the flu, according to DuBose. He had a limited role on offense (10 carries, 58 yards), but he made his presence known in the other two phases. He had 2 sacks on defense, returned a kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown and blocked a field goal.
Stat sheet: St. Michael – Corte carried 12 times for 100 yards and TD runs of 19 and 36 yards. He also had an interception. QB Josh Murphy was 11-of-17 for 126 yards. He was intercepted once. Orange Beach – Turner was 9-of-16 for 237 yards and 3 TDs. He was intercepted once. He also scored 2 rushing TDs (10, 33). His TD passes were 64, 64 and 7 yards to Reddell, who finished with 6 receptions for 182 yards. Lamarr Nelson had an interception for the Makos.
Big play day: The game included six touchdown plays of more than 30 yards. Orange Beach had a pair of 64-yard TD passes from Turner to Reddell to go along with Turner’s 33-yard TD run and Pearson’s 90-yard kickoff return. St. Michael countered with scoring runs of 44 (Sexton) and 36 (Corte).
By the numbers: 6 – Number of region wins in St. Michael history.
“This is big,” Rivers said. “We’ve only won 6 region games. We haven’t won 150 like some of these places, so these are big. Until we get to double digits, they are all big.”
Did you know? St. Michael opted not do conduct warmups at the stadium. Instead, the Cardinals warmed up at the school and arrived at the field about 15 minutes before game time.
“It was just a little bit of a changeup,” Rivers said. “Our warmups have kind of been unenthusiastic and a little dead, and we feel like we stand around here forever. With it being a home game in an environment we are comfortable with, we said, ‘Hey, let’s warm up at the high school.’ We did that and got on the bus at 6:30. It was something a little different.”
Coachspeak: “We started off awesome. We did a lot of good things offensively. Anytime, you score 49, it’s good. But we did some things not good and still scored 49. Defensively, we did some good things, but we have to limit the big plays. We have to tighten that up, and we have been great on that all year. Hopefully, this was just a blip on the radar.” – Rivers.
They said it:
“It was a good high school football game. Offensively, we had a good plan. I thought our coaches did an outstanding job offensively getting it ready. When you don’t get to practice a full week – we didn’t tackle well at times. Those are some of the basic fundamentals I thought we missed tonight. My hat is off to them. They did what they had to do to win. I’m proud to be here, and we’ll line it up next week and see if we can do better.” – DuBose.
“We’ve got to get some strength up front. The weight room will be huge for us in the offseason. All we can do now is keep plugging and keep getting a good plan and, hopefully, next week will be a better week for us.” -- DuBose.
What’s next? St. Michael travels to Wilcox Central (0-4, 0-3) next Friday, while Orange Beach faces another tough road test at Bayside Academy (4-1, 2-1).
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