NOVI — First there was valiant blue and peerless white. Now there’s Basilian black.
Regardless of which jersey color Detroit Catholic Central’s football team is wearing, the Shamrocks are leaving their opponents black and blue.
Catholic Central has won all six of its games so far, including a 41-8 thrashing of archrival Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice in the annual Boys Bowl game on Sunday, Oct. 5. With that victory, Catholic Central clinched first place in the Central Division and secured their spot in the Prep Bowl against Detroit Martin Luther King on Oct. 25 at Ford Field.
The Shamrocks (6-0, 4-0 Central) shell-shocked the Warriors by scoring two long touchdowns on their first two plays from scrimmage. After the defense forced Brother Rice (2-4, 0-3) to punt on its opening series, Cedric Williams got the Shamrocks’ first score on an off-tackle run in which he broke loose for 69 yards.
“We were just trying to come out here and start fast, feed off the energy from our environment and the fans,” he said. “I think that set a good tone and kept us playing fast, and making big play after big play.”
The next big play happened moments later, as quarterback Duke Banta connected with Samson Gash on a flare pass and he sprinted into the end zone from 66 yards away, making the score 14-0 before four minutes had elapsed.
“We’ve been repping that play all week; we knew it was going to be there. Duke gave it to me and then I just used my speed down the sidelines,” Gash said. “We knew we had to get off to a fast start and put these guys away early. That’s what we’ve been doing all year, and we had to do it today.”
Head coach Justin Cessante had praise for his star receiver, who is a Michigan State University commit and the son of former NFL player Sam Gash.
“Every time he touches the football he’s a threat to score,” Cessante said. “His ability to accelerate, the foot speed that he has — obviously he’s won a state championship (in track) — his awareness. He’s been doing a great job of being patient, and finding the right time to get him the football, and it proved successful again.”
Catholic Central scored every time it had the ball in the first half and piled on 17 more points in the second quarter, building a 31-0 lead at the break.
Joshua Peters took a Wildcat snap 2 yards into the end zone in the first minute of the second quarter, before Banta hooked up with Gash for another scoring play covering 52 yards five minutes later.
Ty Goddard added a 31-yard field goal on the final play of the first half, and made another successful three-pointer in the second half to extend the Shamrocks’ lead to 34 points. Catholic Central capped its offensive output with another long scoring play, a flea-flicker pass from Banta to a wide-open Michael Dersa.
“We definitely played as a team today, and it was awesome to see, for sure,” Banta said. “Our energy today was definitely unmatched. This (game) has been a tradition for 81 years. We had a great crowd today; shout out to all of our students. We’ve got the best student section in the state.”
Brother Rice was able to slow Catholic Central’s offense somewhat as the game went on and got a late rushing touchdown by Caden Hong, but the Warriors were in too big of a deficit by then.
“The first quarter didn’t go our way, obviously. Hat’s off to Coach Cessante and his ball club; they came ready to play. Going down two scores early is tough,” Brother Rice coach Aaron Marshall said. “They got on us real fast. We didn’t adjust too much; we just needed to relax and play within ourselves. We know what we’re capable of. We’ve got a young ball club, but they’ve got to step up and be strong in games like this. We’re going to get back in the lab, and we’ll be ready.”
Cessante was proud of his players for setting the tone from the get-go.
“What a great 81st Boys Bowl atmosphere — a packed house — and just to be able to take the momentum right off the rip, with three-and-outs and big plays on the first offensive drives. It was awesome,” he said. “We wanted to stay off the emotional roller-coaster and stay true to our preparation methods, which is about creating a championship mentality, and play state-championship football regardless of who we’re playing against. I’m very proud of their approach each and every day of the week.”
With Sunday’s victory, Catholic Central has punched its ticket to Ford Field to face Detroit Martin Luther King at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 25. It would be a rematch of the game the Shamrocks won last year, 38-7.
“One of our goals this year is going back-to-back and winning the CHSL league, and that was on the line today,” Williams said. “We knew that it’s a rivalry game and they’re going to come out here and try to win, so we had to stay locked in and stay focused.”
Not only was its Catholic Central’s second straight division title, but the Shamrocks have now won 11 straight over their archrivals.
“Any time that you can accomplish something like that in the Catholic League, which I think is the toughest league in the country, we want to be very proud of that,” Cessante said, “but it’s one game at a time every week, and we want to finish what we started and reach our goals.”
Other Prep Bowl berths up for grabs
While the matchup for the Bishop Division game of the Prep Bowl is now set, the races for the other two games are still alive.
For the Cardinal Division, Allen Park Cabrini (6-0, 3-0) leads the Intersectional-2 Division and has beaten both of its closest competitors. The Monarchs can earn their first Prep Bowl berth since 2012 by winning at least one of their two final games, against Marine City Cardinal Mooney (0-6, 0-3) on Oct. 10 or Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes (4-2, 2-1) on Oct. 17. Should that not happen, the winner of the Oct. 17 clash between Royal Oak Shrine (4-2, 2-1) and Clarkston Everest Collegiate (3-3, 2-1) would represent the division downtown.
The Intersectional-2 winner will play either Ann Arbor Fr. Gabriel Richard or Macomb Lutheran North (each is 6-0, 3-0). Those two squads meet Oct. 17 in a likely winner-take-all scenario.
For the Wild-Card Prep Bowl game, Dearborn Divine Child (6-0, 2-0) is the current favorite. But should Toledo St. Francis de Sales (4-3, 1-1) beat the Falcons this Friday, the result would open up several possible scenarios as those two schools would likely finish in a three-way tie also involving Jackson Lumen Christi (3-3, 2-1). Point differential in head-to-head competition would become the tie-breaking factor.
