By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
It’s been an interesting two weeks for Loyola coach John Sella and the Flyer football team.
First, the school’s Homecoming game was called off a week ago due to the opponent having its season suspended. Sella spent significant time looking for a last-minute opponent, but to no avail.
So much for the week-by-week rhythm of the regular season.
As the Flyers prepared for practice after an unscheduled week off, not all of them were able to get on the field. Loyola had an unprecedented number of school-wide absences due to the flu – and that included the football team.
And not just a few here or there. When Sella walked on the field for Wednesday’s practice, 13 starters were absent.
So much for the daily preparation of game week.
As the Flyers prepared to take on Bastrop Friday night at Messmer Stadium, Sella had to consider a wide variety of lineups, based on availability. But the good news was that most of those who were out on Wednesday were on the tail end of sickness cycle and in the “24 hours of no fever” period.
By Friday, Sella knew he had the starting lineup he was hoping for, but there were other concerns. So which was a bigger issue: Rust from the week off or lack of preparation from half of the starters?
“I think it was a combination of that,” Sella said. “If you hadn’t played in two weeks then practice is important. That’s why we do it every day. Some of these guys only had one day of practice and so I worried about timing being off.”
It didn’t turn out to be much of a problem as the Flyers scored touchdowns on all seven possessions – there was only one in the second half because of a running clock – while picking up a 50-16 win over the Rams in a District 1-3A game.
Bryce Restovich threw six touchdown passes to four different receivers to go with an ultra-efficient night of 295 yards on 15 of 19 passes.
“Before the game I was harping on staying positive and staying patient because everything might not go our way,” Sella said. “But we were able to handle it pretty well. And I was happy with our rhythm and our timing.”
The Flyers went 70 yards in nine plays to start the game with a 1-yard scoring catch by Ty Walsworth. That scoring drive took 3:02 – an eternity compared to the other scoring drives, none of which lasted longer than two minutes.
One of those possessions took only 10 seconds as Walsworth returned a punt 74 yards just before halftime to make it 44-8. It’s Walsworth’s second kick return for a touchdown of the year and the fourth of his career.
There was an even longer play in the game that was almost one for the record books. The Flyers ran only three plays in the second half, but the first one was a 93-yard pass from Restovich to Graham Kyle. However, Kyle got tackled at the Bastrop 2 to prevent him from catching the longest scoring pass play in school history.
Charlie McKenzie and Walsworth each caught two TD passes and Brock Geter and Kyle each caught one.
“It was a good start to see that we are in rhythm and that time off didn’t affect us,” Sella said. “Things kind of went to plan from there.”
Loyola is now 5-3 and 2-1 in the district. The Flyers, No. 8 in the Division III (select) power rankings, will head to Springhill Friday to take on North Webster for their final district game of the year.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com