Read about the success of Cardinal Ritter and the Detroit Lions football team, showing early promise in their seasons.
Above left to right: Cardinal Ritter receiver Elijah Lucas (in dark jersey) hauls in a pass in the club’s home opener on August 30 against Jackson. Meanwhile Jamarion Parker fights for yardage, amid a slew of Jackson defenders in white jerseys. Ritter won the game 44-7, as Lucas caught five passes for 81 yards and Parker scored four touchdowns. Meanwhile the halftime intermission included former Cardinal Ritter star Jameson Williams, shown in the yellow and blue hoodie beaming over an encased jersey, along with his parents and other relatives, being honored. Photos by Leon Algee
For the Cardinal Ritter Lions football team it’s now 30-for30-and counting. As in 30-up and 30-down, in terms of victims of the Lions’ 30-game winning streak, which includes a Missouri Class 3 and Class 5 state title, respectively. It doesn’t matter whether, they are at home, at an opponents site, or neutral site, such as Faurot Field, for the state championship games, the Lions have still claimed the victory.
On Friday night, it was a 28-10 triumph in Rochester, Illinois, home of the Rochester Rockets, the defending Illinois Class 4A state champions. The previous Friday night, the Lions played host to the Jackson High Fighting Indians, a perennial state title contender and a fairly recent two-time state champion themselves, in 2019 and 2020.
Ritter rolled to a 44-7 blowout of Jackson, yielding a 20-yard quarterback scramble for a score in the last 10 minutes of the game. Other than that, the Lions defense stifled Jackson’s well-regarded offense all game.
“What I wasn’t prepared for was our inability to run the football,” said Jackson coach Ryan Nesbitt afterwards. “I’ve got to look at the video, but you’ve also got to tip your hat to them because I thought they were stout on defense, and they’re a good football team.”
Suffice to say, that’s putting it mildly. The Cardinal Ritter have grown so accustomed to winning, other teams may be at a psychological disadvantage at this juncture when they step out on the field. But Ritter’s more confident then complacent.
“We have guys on this team that haven’t lost in two years,” said Lions coach Brennan Spain after the rout of Jackson. “We’ve got some veteran seasoned guys, so I expect the veteran guys to be able to pull the younger guys along and show them how it’s done.”
Despite the final margin of victim, Ritter didn’t exactly score at will against Jackson. In fact, Jackson’s secondary, led by Blayne Reagan and Kai Crowe made exceptional plays on Ritter’s explosive receivers, in limiting big yardage completions and coming up with deflections and a great interception by Regan, who also played a physical game. Although Ritter’s all-state quarterback Carson Boyd did finish with over 300 yards passing, by spreading the ball around to different pass catchers on shorter routes, it was the Lions ground game which did harm to Jackson. Boyd scrambled his way for 100 yards on just six carries, emerging star Manny Ellis added 88 yards rushing on 10 carries and Jamarion Parker rushed for 68 yards on 10 carries, three of which went for touchdown runs.
“Too many missed tackles,” lamented Nesbitt of his Jackson run-defense.
Parker, who has verbally committed to the University of Nebraska, also added a 21-yard touchdown catch coming out of the backfield, but the most celebrated touchdown of the evening was scored on a 23-yard interception return by senior defensive tackle Bryce Gray in the third quarter. (Ritter led 20-0 at the half and 38-0 after three quarters.) The 240-pound Gray rumbled through the first wave of would-be tacklers, then high-stepped it into the end zone.
“I was high-stepping like Roger Craig,” joked Gray, while referencing the San Francisco 49ers great running back from the 1980’s, noting that he watches film of players from the 80’s and 90’s, as well as from way back in the 1920’s.
But Gray wasn’t just a one-play star. Far from it, he was arguably the most productive player on the field last Friday night, with 15 tackles, two sacks and a pick-six.
“It feels great,” said Gray, who had 81 tackles and nine sacks last season. “Man, I watch film three hours a day to get ready.”
Collectively, Ritter is most certainly ‘ready’ to roll again this season. In beating Rochester, Parker ran for a game-high 160 yards and two touchdowns. He had a 73-yard touchdown burst and a 12-yard touchdown run. Ritter also tallied on a 16-yard touchdown strike from Boyd to Miller in the last 26 seconds of the half, plus an 8-yard touchdown run by Manny Ellis in the fourth quarter.
Cardinal Ritter will be aiming to improve its season mark to 3-0 and extend its winning streak to 31 games when it plays at St. Charles County powerhouse Francis Howell in a 7 pm game on Friday night (Sept. 14).
While the Cardinal Ritter Lions keep rolling along, the Detroit Lions of the National Football League got off to a rousing start as well, by outlasting the Los Angeles Rams 26-20 in overtime, with a former Cardinal Ritter Lion helping spark the victory: wide receiver Jameson Williams. Just one week after being honored at Cardinal Ritter during a bye week, Williams had five catches for 121 yards, including an electric 52-yard catch-and-run score to get one of the game-balls along with quarterback Jared Goff on the NBC Sunday Night Football season-opener telecast. The Lions coming off a division title and a conference championship appearance.
NBC broadcaster Chris Collinsworth set the tone early by emphasizing the expectations on Williams, who has had injuries, this season and beyond.
“If the Lions are going to be what they have to be, Jameson Williams is going to have to be a big part of it,” remarked Collinsworth in the early part of the game. A couple of quarters later and Williams was living up to the hype, highlighted by the touchdown, in which he burst past and then around the Rams would be tacklers.
“You have somebody with that kind of speed, there’s no way to catch up,” said Collinsworth of Williams, who has been clocked at 4.25 seconds in the 40-yard dash, one of fastest ever coming out of the University of Alabama, where he was a consensus All-American three seasons ago with 79 catches for 1,572 yards and 15 total touchdowns, including two kickoff returns
On playing for perennial national title contender Alabama and legendary coach Nick Saban, Williams told the Argus at the ceremony: “It was a great atmosphere and definitely an honor playing for one of the greatest coaches ever. He showed he had confidence in me, coming out of high school, then when I transferred to Alabama from Ohio State.”
As his father, James Williams watched Jameson get acknowledged at the Cardinal Ritter event he reacted emotionally: “Excuse me I’m getting choked up just thinking about it. It has been a blessing to see it all happen. I’m just getting choked up watching the jersey dedication.”
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