Justin Buckner had a throwback game on Friday night.
A mainstay for St. Rita’s defense at linebacker, the senior took three direct snaps in a Wildcat formation against St. Francis and scored on two of them.
That, plus a productive night from running back Nick Herman, powered the No. 15 Mustangs to a 31-13 win against the No. 9 Spartans in Wheaton.
Buckner’s first touchdown from eight yards out late in the first half made it 14-0 St. Rita. His second score from 26 yards pushed the Mustangs’ lead to 24-7 late in the third quarter.
“Thank God the coaches believed in me to put me back there and just make a play,” Buckner said. “Back in my younger days, I was always playing running back, never played on defense. Finally I got the opportunity to go back there and I had to do it for St. Rita.”
Those were the first two offensive touchdowns of Buckner’s career. He had a pick-six last season, his first after transferring from Lincoln-Way East. He finished with three carries for 38 yards on Friday after having just one rushing attempt in the Mustangs’ first three games.
Going up against an explosive St. Francis offense that scored 35 points in a win at Loyola the week before, St. Rita coach Martin Hopkins figured this was a good time to open up the playbook.
“Being a defensive coach and having Justin, I’m like, ‘I don’t want Justin to get hurt,'” Hopkins said jokingly. “The offensive coaches have had it [available] for a little while. And after seeing what he did, I said we might need to call that a little bit more.”
Herman ran 23 times for 116 yards and two scores for St. Rita (3-1, 1-0 CCL/ESCC Green), including a nine-yarder with 1:08 remaining that clinched it.
“Our offensive [coordinator] did a great job of challenging the guys to control the clock,” Hopkins said. “You can only do that by running the football. They’re a very good defense, they’ve been hard to run the ball on. Our guys accepted the challenge and Nick just put his head down. There’s times there might have only been two yards there and he managed to get five.”
“As soon as the second half came around, I knew we had to slug it out in the running game because it was working really well,” Herman said. “Our defense came up and made big stops, we ran out the clock and punched one in at the end.”
The Mustangs also mixed things up in the first half with more running than usual by quarterback Steven Armbruster, who had 54 rushing yards in the first two quarters.
And Matt Grzyb had a big night on special teams. He booted a 39-yard field goal, had five touchbacks on kickoffs and ran 15 yards for a first down on a fake punt.
“We talk about all three phases as a program and definitely special teams came up big,” Hopkins said.
For St. Francis (3-1, 0-1), quarterback Brady Palmer was 13-of-29 passing for 281 yards and two touchdowns, including a 98-yarder to Tanner Glock.
The Spartans’ lead back, TyVonn Ransom, left the game early in the third quarter and didn’t return, finishing with six carries for 34 yards.
“He tweaked his knee a little bit,” St. Francis coach Bob McMillen said. “Hopefully it’s not too serious.”
McMillen said the Spartans had a letdown after the Loyola win.
“We got outplayed, outcoached,” he said. “[St. Rita] was a well-coached football team tonight and they came out here with a purpose, the same way we did against Loyola last week. I think our guys got a little complacent, thinking we were better than what we were and Rita took it to us.”