After falling behind 10-0, Cathedral scored 30 unanswered points Friday night to defeat Roncalli, 30-10, in a high school football sectional semifinal game at Arsenal Tech. With the victory, the sixth-ranked Fighting Irish advance to the Class 5-A Sectional 13 championship game next Friday at second-rated Decatur Central.
Roncalli possessed the ball for more than nine minutes in the first quarter and jumped out to a 7-0 lead on Andrew Lockard’s 49-yard touchdown run. Owen Herndon’s 31-yard field goal with 7:14 to play in the first half extended the Rebels’ lead to 10-0.
Cathedral answered on its next possession when Chon’Dre Cissell ran four yards for a touchdown to make the score 10-6. Cissell scored again on a five-yard run in the closing seconds of the first half to put the Irish ahead 13-10 at the intermission.
Cathedral started the second half with a 12-play, 64-yard drive that ended on Christian Alerding’s 26-yard field goal. Quarterback Orin Edwards four-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter increased the Irish lead to 23-10. Cissell added another four-yard scoring run in the closing minutes of the game for the final margin.
After Roncalli rushed for 101 yards in the first quarter, Cathedral’s defense held the Rebels to just 49 yards on the ground during the remainder of the game. On the night, the Irish defense allowed just one completed Roncalli pass in ten attempts.
Cissell finished the game with 77 rushing yards on 19 carries. Edwards completed 16 of 26 passes for 147 yards. Bo Sanders led Irish receivers with eight catches for 47 yards, while Evan Dawn caught five passes for 65 yards. Sanders now has 81 receptions this year, just two short of tying the school record for most catches in a season set by Reece Horn in 2010.
The win is Cathedral’s 35th consecutive in sectional tournament play. Friday’s sectional final at Decatur central is a rematch of the 2017 sectional title game won by the Irish, 42-21, at Arsenal Tech. Decatur Central enters the game with a 9-1 record. The Hawks only loss came in week four at eighth-ranked Martinsville, 18-15. The Irish are 3-0 all-time against Decatur Central with all of the games occurring in Class 5-A sectional play.