Late fumble ends Kapaun’s chance to beat Carroll football for first time since 1999
In some respects, the Bishop Carroll-Kapaun Mount Carmel football rivalry game on Friday was just the latest chapter in a book that’s read the same way since 1999.
For the 24th straight time in the series, Carroll beat Kapaun, this time by a 31-28 score. But unlike so many of those losses the past two decades, this one was never out of reach for the Crusaders. In fact, it was the closest Kapaun has come to beating its cross-town Catholic rival since 2009, and a dramatic 36-34 game broadcast on ESPNU.
Two decades of Crusader pain came agonizingly close to ending. But as Kapaun was marching toward the goal line for a go-ahead score in the final 90 seconds, a fumble lost at the Carroll 15-yard line brought the devastating conclusion for Kapaun in heartbreaking fashion.
“If we don’t put the ball on the ground, I think we win that game,” said first-year Kapaun coach Weston Schartz. “They weren’t stopping us. I really do believe we would have scored.”
After Carroll had pieced together a go-ahead drive, capped by Hunter Trail’s third rushing touchdown of the game with 3:50 remaining, Kapaun showed its mettle during the ensuing drive.
Needing just three yards on a fourth down near midfield, with the game on the line, Schartz instead sought out a big play. He believed Carroll’s secondary would jump any quick routes, so he dialed up a wheel route down the far sideline. Sure enough, Carroll’s defense bit on what it thought would be an early throw and Kapaun quarterback Andrew Gimino spiraled a perfect strike through the air to hit Ethan Stuhlsatz in stride for a 35-yard gain deep into Carroll territory.
On the very next play, Gimino turned a broken play into what looked to be a first-down scramble, but a joint tackle by Carroll’s Haden Sage and Cade Gatschet jarred the ball loose before Gimino’s knee touched the ground. Instead of a first down at the Carroll 15-yard line with 1:24 left, Kapaun’s sideline deflated as it watched Carroll senior Andrew Husband fall on the loose ball to seal the fate of the game.
“It tore our hearts out,” Schartz said. “Like I told our kids, they haven’t lost to those guys (23) times in a row. This group has only lost to them twice. We never felt like the underdog. We felt like we were going to win that game.”
For Carroll, it was the second straight week the defense produced a game-winning play in the final minutes. Last week, in a 29-28 win over Junction City, it was stopping a potential game-winning two-point conversion in the final minute.
“You have to stay calm in those situations,” Sage said. “I think we were all a little nervous probably, but I think we always had faith in our team that we were going to pull it out.”
That’s been Carroll’s mantra for the last two decades, but even coach Dustry Trail admitted it was hard for him to remain even-keeled when Carroll went from its back against the wall to winning the game in a whirlwind of 30 seconds.
“It was definitely a roller coaster,” Trail said. “We always try to tell them to stay even-keeled when good things happen and don’t get too low when bad things happen. But in situations like that, it’s very difficult.
“We talked to our kids and we told them, ‘If you play your game, big plays are going to happen. You just have to be ready for your opportunity.’ It’s fitting that two of our best guys on defense were there to make that big play.”
Trail has been on Carroll’s sidelines for all 24 of those victories over Kapaun and there’s been precious few times when he’s faced the type of pressure in the fourth quarter that he did on Friday when Carroll was trailing 28-24 with less than eight minutes remaining.
Behind the reliable arm of senior quarterback Aiden Niedens, who threw for 259 yards on 16-of-26 passing, and the hard running from Hunter Trail, who grinded out 98 rushing yards, Carroll responded to the adversity with the go-ahead touchdown, a nine-yard Trail scamper, with 3:50 remaining for the fifth and final lead change of the game.
“Going into that drive, we were all very confident that we could get the job done,” said Hunter Trail, the coach’s son. “Our run game was wearing on them. So we knew we were going to get it in and then put the game in the hands of our defense again. And those guys got the job done once again.”
Dusty Trail and Schartz have been long-time coaching adversaries in the City League, as Schartz has been the head coach of West, Northwest, West again, and now Kapaun since Trail arrived at Carroll in 1995.
Even though Kapaun was coming off a two-win season where its offense didn’t average 11 points per game, Trail knew that Schartz would have the Crusaders prepared.
“Coach Schartz knows how to coach, I think he’s been doing it for nearly 40 years now,” Trail said. “He knows how to motivate his players and he knows what works for his system and he knows how to make them run it very well.”
So while Friday may have been just one more loss in the one-sided rivalry against Carroll, Kapaun showed things could be different going forward with Schartz at the helm.
“We’re going to win a lot of football games,” Schartz said. “This team won two games last year and you wouldn’t even know that by watching them compete. They’ve turned it around already. We’ve closed the gap (on Carroll), but we still haven’t beat them.”
| Kapaun | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | — | 28 |
| Carroll | 0 | 17 | 7 | 7 | — | 31 |
KMC—Ruda 3 run (Schmitz kick)
BC—Trail 3 run (Garcia kick)
BC—Gallardo 6 pass from Niedens (Garcia kick)
KMC—Jones 8 pass from Gimino (Schmitz kick)
BC—Garcia 22 field goal
KMC—Bates 1 run (Schmitz kick)
BC—Trail 5 run (Garcia kick)
KMC—Gimino 10 run (Schmitz kick)
BC—Trail 10 run (Garcia kick)
Rushing—Kapaun, Gimino 18-68, Ruda 16-56, Bates 13-36, Curtis 2-3, Kunz 3-(-3); Carroll, Trail 19-98, Williams 5-25, Niedens 7-(-7).
Passing—Kapaun, Gimino 10-11-0-169, Kunz 2-2-0-11; Carroll, Niedens 16-26-0-259.
Receiving—Kapaun, Ancieux 4-65, Ackerman 2-17, Jones 2-13, Thengvall 1-38, Stuhlsatz 1-35, Bates 1-7, Ruda 1-5; Carroll, Holthusen 5-100, Gallardo 4-74, Ferguson 4-52, Trail 2-26, Blasi 1-7.
This story was originally published September 12, 2020 at 12:14 AM.
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