October 5, 2008St. Joseph Beats Mistake-Prone Trinity Catholicfrom The Stamford Advocate TRUMBULL - Both Trinity Catholic High School and St. Joseph came into Saturday's game as two of the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference teams with asterisks attached. Those asterisks masked questions marks. The Crusaders were 2-1, winning the two games they should after suffering a blowout loss to a Darien team that is still unbeaten and a possible championship contender. Where they fit on the league totem pole was still uncertain. The Cadets entered with a 3-0 mark following three blowouts against weak competition. Were they merely a good team or one capable of breaking through and making their first appearance in the FCIAC title game? No definitive answers were forthcoming Saturday, though only one team seemed to mind. St. Joseph tapped its vaunted passing game and underrated defense, taking advantage of four turnovers for a convincing 40-7 homecoming win. In terms of margin of victory, the Cadets' asterisk thus far has really been an exclamation point. They have outscored their opponents by a 179-44 margin and may not really discover just how good they are until they host unbeaten New Canaan in two weeks. Asked if his team is for real, St. Joseph coach Joe DellaVecchia said, "I don't know. I think we're as good as we want to be. We've gotten a lot better than a year ago in different areas of the game. We've got a lot of weapons." One of those is his son Joe, the sophomore quarterback who on Saturday completed 9 of 19 passes for 154 yards and three touchdowns. Tyler Matakevich was on the receiving end of two of them, while Sam Ditchkus also had two touchdowns. "We're playing well right now," the elder DellaVecchia said. The Crusaders showed flashes of the kind of efficient team their coach, Bryan Fox, believes they can be, but not enough of them. St. Joseph's defense took away his best weapon, Nick Cortese, and they had a difficult time compensating. "We made too many mistakes," Fox said. "We just can't do that. We hope to play with good teams and right now it looks like we can't." If there was a turning point Saturday, it came early in the second quarter, not long after Steve Scalero's 12-yard pass to Jayme Antonetti had brought the Crusaders within 14-7 and they had taken the ball back. On third-and-6 play from its own 40-yard line, Trinity appeared to have a first down on Vince Carter's 10-yard run. But Cortese was penalized for holding on what appeared to be a clean block. On the following play, Ditchkus picked off Scalero and returned the ball 55 yards for an apparent touchdown. The score was nullified by an illegal block, but that proved to be a minor delay as Ditchkus scored on a 3-yard run five plays later to give the Cadets a 21-7 lead. They added another touchdown with 20 seconds left in the half and the Crusaders never recovered. The penalty did not alter the outcome, but without it the game might have had greater suspense. "That was a big play," Fox said. "But we had too many other problems with our blocking, tackling, catching and throwing, basic football." St. Joseph unleashed its aerial attack on the game's second play, with DellaVecchia hitting Matakevich for a 56-yard score on a seam pattern in which the tight end made two Trinity defenders miss tackles. Then the Cadets loaded the box in an attempt to shut down Cortese, who was leading the league in rushing with nearly 600 yards and was coming off a workhorse performance in which he carried the ball 50 times for 214 yards and five touchdowns in an overtime win over Fairfield Ludlowe the previous week. Cortese carried the ball just four times for two yards in the first half as the Crusaders looked to get other players involved, with varying degrees of success. "They came out and put a lot of guys inside and we had to come out and counter that," Fox said. Cortese would finish the game with 16 carries for 70 yards, but 26 of them came on a run in the closing minutes. "We tried to pass the ball and switch things up to open it up for me, but it didn't happen," Cortese said. The Cadets put the game away by taking advantage of another mistake on their first possession of the second half. After they were stopped, a punt deflected off of the Crusaders' R.J. Calo and Chris Marino recovered on the Trinity 6-yard line, setting up DellaVecchia's second scoring pass to Matakevich. "We just didn't play our style of football," Cortese said. "Basically we didn't play up to our potential. It is more than frustrating. It makes me want to throw up." NOTES - Mike Manka had a pair of sacks for the Crusaders. Copyright © 2008, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.
 Big senior defensive tackle Vladimir Joseph swims by an offensive lineman in a 28-20 home victory over Fairfield Ludlowe on October 29, 2005. (CrusaderNation.net / Dana Maul)
 Junior defensive tackle Santiago "Teggy" Steele wraps up a Darien
rusher as his
 Junior center Cory Johnson prepares to snap the ball to fellow classmate
 The Crusader offensive line pushes Bassick around in the mud. The
Crusaders
 Senior wideout Rob Hawthorn races downfield to block as junior fullback
Eric Stephens
 2005 All-FCIAC East Offense Row 1, Left to Right: Eric Wells, Bassick; Willie Epps, McMahon;
Pete Raymond,
 2005 All-FCIAC East Defense Row 1, Left to Right: Joe Luchesi, Danbury; Greg Sabo, Danbury; James
Taylor, Danbury;
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