Hail Mary sends St. Francis football to third loss in a row

LA CAÑADA — “Knock it down!” was bellowed about the St. Francis High football sideline.

Seconds later, the next instruction from Golden Knights Coach Jim Bonds was simple and emphatic: “Get up.”

Harvard-Westlake celebrated wildly, as St. Francis sat and stood devastated.

Wolverines receiver Alex Barnum hauled in a deflected 48-yard pass from quarterback Noah Rothman with no time left, as Harvard-Westlake defeated the Golden Knights, 27-21, on Thursday night in an Angelus League game at Friedman Field.

What had seemed destined to be a St. Francis blowout, then appeared a certainty for overtime and ultimately concluded with the brown and gold’s third straight loss.

“We talk about it all the time; 11 guys have to do their job every play,” Bonds said. “We’re just not clicking yet and it’s a little late in the year not to be clicking.”

St. Francis (4-3, 0-2), ranked sixth in the CIF Southern Section Southeast Division, returned home for the first time in four weeks, but lost its third straight game in the process. It’s a different experience for a team that won the Angelus League last year and hadn’t lost consecutive games since November 2013 against Gardena Serra and Chaminade.

“Everybody remembers what we did last year, we’re still going to get everybody’s best game,” Bonds said.

The Golden Knights jumped out to a 14-0 first-quarter lead and led, 21-14, with 7:44 to play after the third touchdown pass of the night by quarterback Miles Bryant (13 of 20 for 140 yards with one interception).

But a fumble on the St. Francis 2-yard line led to a tie ball game before the Hail Mary led to devastation.

“After the second quarter, we struggled to execute on offense,” Bonds said.

Bonds was without standout All-Area running back Areg Nazarian, who was injured, and All-Area receiver Jasher Foster, who was out for unspecified reasons.

Harvard-Westlake (5-2, 2-0) rallied from down 14 points with a 95-yard Rothman-to-Barnum touchdown pass on the first play from scrimmage in the second half tying the game at 14.

Still, St. Francis’ defense, despite finding itself on the field far too much, allowed just 243 total yards, with Rothman completing 11 of 23 passes for 210 yards and Barnum grabbing four catches for 149 yards and the two touches.

On the ground, Bryant was also his team’s leading rusher with 42 yards in 17 carries and five sacks.

The St. Francis defense also had five sacks.

At the onset, the Golden Knights’ execution was on point.

On the third play of the game, Bryant hit Tre Polomalu for a 32-yard touchdown.

St. Francis’ next drive sputtered when a Jace Harrick fourth-down touchdown run was called back on a hold and a subsequent field goal attempt was missed. But two plays later, Anthony Khoshrozeh forced a fumble that was recovered by Polomalu.

On the ensuing play, Bryant found Harrick for a 17-yard touchdown pass and St. Francis was up, 14-0, with 4:06 to play.

But the Golden Knights’ offense was stagnant from there, failing to score until Bryant hit Daniel Scott on an 18-yard score with 7:44 to play. The drive was only 20 yards after a botched snap on a punt by the Wolverines.

After the St. Francis defense held on Harvard-Westlake’s ensuing drive, the Wolverines punted to the 2-yard line. On the next play, St. Francis fumbled away possession. Not long after, it was tied at 21.

St. Francis had two more drives to go ahead, but punted away with just 1.3 seconds remaining.

A week after losing to Salesian in double overtime for its first-ever Angelus League loss, an extra session seemed on the horizon. Instead, Harvard-Westlake is undefeated in league and St. Francis was left searching for answers.

Said Bonds: “We gotta find a way to get up off the mat.”