TOUCHDOWN — Catholic Central’s Kyran Busic celebrates his touchdown against Bishop Rosecrans with teammate Matty Jones during Saturday’s game at Harding Stadium. - Andrew Grimm

After a combined 62 points, 391 yards of offense, five turnovers, two successful onside kicks and three defensive touchdowns in the second half alone, the Crusaders emerged with a hard-fought 52-45 victory at Harding Stadium.

“What an awesome night,” Catholic Central head coach Eric Meek said. “We’re growing up, our kids are showing up every day and practicing hard and they are playing hard in the games. They’re representing their school well. I’m proud of the kids and I’m proud of the assistant coaches. We got better, being in a physical battle last week made us better and tonight we were in a war and our kids kept fighting, kept battling and got the victory.”

After trailing 21-14 at halftime, the now 2-1 Crusaders scored 32 third quarter points to surge ahead and seemed to have things well at hand, leading 52-31 with five minutes left in the fourth quarter.

The Bishops, though, were not going to go away.

Catholic Central’s James McInnis fights through a tackle while returning a kick off during Saturday’s game against Bishop Rosecrans. - Andrew Grimm

The visitors from the Zanesville area scored a quick TD, recovered an onside kick, scored again, recovered a second onside kick and were deep in the Central end of the field in the final minute before Matthew Sprochi intercepted his third pass of the game — the fifth of the night for the Central defense — to seal the victory.

While the Crusaders defense did give up a lot of yards — 443 of them to be exact — they forced six turnovers and returned four of them for scores, three of those coming in the second half.

“I think I aged about 20 years in that fourth quarter,” Meek said. “There were so many things that happened that I’m going to have to watch to film to even remember it all. Give (Rosecrans) credit, they played really hard. They’re a good football team. We battled through adversity, we had two kids that didn’t play because of injuries and had a couple more get hurt in the game, and we just kept playing.

“We had four defensive scores, that was really big, and we moved the ball well enough on offense.

“I don’t remember another game I’ve coached where we had four defensive scores. It’s great to be 2-1”

Central’s Matthew Sprochi breaks a tackle on a rush on his way to a big night. - Andrew Grimm

Central’s third quarter surge started with a quick opening drive of the half, capped by a Ryan Holzworth (53 yards, two scores) 19-yard scoring run that was set up by a Sprochi (168 yards rushing, 50 yards passing) 46 yard run deep into the Rosecrans end.

After a Daveon Thorn interception, Holzworth scored again, this time on a 7-yard run set up by a 28-yard Sprochi dash, giving Central its first lead of the game after three ties.

Rosecrans (2-1) answered, but Central re-took the lead as this time Sprochi’s big gain went into the end zone, an 18-yard scoring run to make it 34-28.

The rest of Central’s scoring came from the defense.

On the ensuing drive, Rosecrans’ Nick Bernath tried to pitch the ball after making a catch over the middle on a hook-and-ladder play – he had successfully completed one earlier in the game – but this time the pitch went to Central’s Zach Bryan, who went the other way 65 yards to score.

On the next drive, Sprochi stepped in front of a pass from the Bishops’ Hayden Perdue (17 of 51, 299 yards, five touchdowns, five interceptions) and returned it 75 yards to score.

After Rosecrans kicked a field goal early in the fourth quarter to make it a two-score game again, Sprochi intercepted another pass, this time taking it back 65 yards to score again.

Perdue fired two touchdown passes in the final four minutes of the game after that, but Sprochi’s third interception thwarted the comeback.

Kyran Busic had a two-yard scoring plunge that knotted the game at 7-7 in the first quarter. After Rosecrans had taken a 14-7 lead after one and was on the move in the second quarter, Central’s James McInnis – who had a big kick return set up the first Central score – stepped in front of a pass at his own 5-yard-line and raced 95 yards the other way to score. He unfortunately left the game with an injury in the second half.

A Perdue TD toss of 49 yards with 58 seconds left in the half put the Bishops on top 21-14 at the break before the wild second half.

Defensively for Central, McInnis had a pass break up and a tackle for loss to go with his big return, Busic had three tackles for loss, Bryan broke up a pass to go with his big return. Sprochi had his three picks, two defensive scores and another pass broken up, Thorn had his pick and Matty Jones had two tackles for loss and sack.

Central totaled 300 return yards on the four defensive scores, which out-paced its offense’s 280 yards on the night.

Bernath had a huge night for the Bishops in the loss, hauling in nine passes for 151 yards and three scores, rushing for another 78 yards on 11 carries to account for 279 of the Bishops’ 443 yards of offense.

The massive final totals of of a combined 97 points and 723 yards of offense was quite the contrast to last year’s meeting in Zanesville, an 8-7 Central victory.

UP NEXT

Bishop Rosecrans: Hosts Grove City Christian (2-1) Friday night.

Catholic Central: Hosts the Bridgeport Bulldogs (1-2) next Saturday on homecoming.

Catholic Central 52, Bishop Rosecrans 45

BR 14-7-7-17 – 45

CC 7-7-32-6 – 52

SCORING

First Quarter

BR: Balo 24 run (Robinson kick) 9:57

CC: Busic 2 run (Descalzo kick) 5:50

BR: Bernath 24 pass from Perdue (Robinson kick) 3:17

Second Quarter

CC: McInnis 95 inerception return (Descalzo kick) 9:41

BR: Bernath 49 pass from Perdue (Robinson kick) :58

Third Quarter

CC: Holzworth 19 run (Descalzo kick) 10:15

CC: Holzworth 7 run (Descalzo kick) 8:10

BR: Bernath 18 pass from Perdue (Robinson kick) 7:28

CC: Sprochi 18 run (run failed) 5:38

CC: Bryan 65 fumble return (run failed) 4:08

CC: Sprochi 75 interception return (kick failed) 1:21

Fourth Quarter

BR: Robinson 37 field goal 8:06

CC: Sprochi 65 interception return (run failed) 5:03

BR: T. Grandstaff 38 pass from Perdue (Robinson kick) 3:48

BR: C. Grandstaff 6 pass from Perdue (Robinson kick) 1:25

RUSHING: Bishop Rosecrans 31-144-TD (Balo 12-50-TD; Perdue 6-9; Bernath 11-78; Bee 1-(-3); C. Grandstaff 1-10); Catholic Central 39-230-4TD (Sprochi 21-168-TD; Holzworth 11-53-2TD; Thorn 1-2; Bucic 6-7-TD)

PASSING: Bishop Rosecrans 17-51-299-5TD-5INT (all by Perdue); Catholic Catholic 3-6-50 (all by Sprochi)

RECIEVING: Bishop Rosecrans 17-299-5TD (C. Grandstaff 5-79-TD; Bernath 9-151-3TD; Bee 2-20; T. Grandstaff 2-44-TD); Catholic Central 3-50 (Bryan 2-50; Thorn 1-0)

FIRST DOWNS: Bishop Rosecrans 17; Catholic Central 9

PENALTIES-YARDS: Bishop Rosecrans 7-65; Catholic Central 6-83

FUMBLES-LOST: Bishop Rosecrans 3-1; Catholic Central 2-0

PUNTS-AVG: Bishop Rosecrans 0-0; Catholic Central 2-24