Coming up on Friday night at 7:30pm at San Jose City College, the St. Ignatius Wildcats and Bellarmine Bells will go head-to-head to crown a CCS Open Division champion. Bellarmine (11-1 overall) is hoping for a Northern California regional bowl berth while St. Ignatius (9-3 overall) is hoping to win back-to-back CCS titles, with their championship coming in the Division III bracket last year.
St. Ignatius is looking to build upon its clutch 25-22 victory over Archbishop Mitty last Saturday night. Wildcats’ running back Elijah Dale scored on a 15-yard run with 2:33 left in the game to give St. Ignatius the lead for good.
The Wildcats’ defense held strong and kept Mitty off the board for two plus minutes toward the end of the game. Similarly, last Friday night, the Bellarmine defense came up big when it mattered most in a close-fought victory against Serra.
On 4th-and-2 with 1:08 left in the game, the Bells stopped Serra running back Kava Cassidy on the one-yard line to pull out a 17-12 win. Running back Kenneth Olugbode had two touchdowns for the Bells. St. Ignatius and Bellarmine have one previous matchup this season with the Bells earning a 35-28 victory.
Bells’ quarterback K.J. Carta-Samuels rushed for two scores along with two touchdown passes in that game. St. Ignatius receiver Andrew Vollert caught two touchdown passes in the losing effort back on October 27.
“The key to getting by St. Ignatius is execution. If we execute plays and techniques, then we can get by anybody," Olugbode said. "The key to stopping them is not giving up the big play.”
Bellarmine presents a powerful Wildcat offense with a consistent running game featuring running backs Olugbode and track star Joey Sanfilippo carrying the way for the Bells. Olugbode has eight rushing touchdowns along with Sanfilippo scoring seven times on the ground this season for Bellarmine.
With this potent running game, Bellarmine can mix it up with passes down the field for big scores. Bells’ receiver Jared Vallner has five touchdown receptions on the year, averaging 41.6 yards per touchdown reception.
St. Ignatius also has a high-powered offense with talented running backs and a deep receiving corps. Wildcats’ running back Elijah Dale has 13 touchdowns this season with running back Albert Waters also assisting the strong running attack.
For the Wildcats’ passing game, quarterback Jack Stinn has multiple targets in receivers Vollert, Nik Bell, Moore Harris and junior Joe Lang, who emerged as a big-play threat in the win over Mitty. Vollert has had a couple of breakout games including two weeks ago against Palma in the CCS quarterfinals in which he had five receptions for 94 yards with two touchdowns.
On the defensive side, the Bells have been able to pressure their opponents’ offenses all year with defensive lineman Dominic Luca leading the charge.
“This week we are going to clean up our pass defense since we know that St. Ignatius is a huge threat throwing the ball," Luca said. "The key to stopping the offense is playing the hard-nose defense that we have been playing all year.”
Two-way player Olugbode has also had a strong presence at middle linebacker coming up with huge plays throughout the season.
On the other side, St. Ignatius defensive lineman Noah Bull leads the Wildcats defensive power coming up with a huge 18-tackle game against Bellarmine in the previous matchup this year. This is expected to be a close game with powerful offenses along with strong defenses for both teams. Carta-Samuels has one goal in mind after a preseason of many questions and doubts.
“The goal this week is to be CCS champions two years in a row," Carta-Samuels said. "That would be an amazing accomplishment for a team that at the beginning of the season wasn’t expected to do much from the eyes of the rest of the league.”
