Mater East and Faith Lutheran’s football teams had to wait an extra night to finish their full season opener after persistent lighting delayed the game from Friday night to Saturday morning.
The wait was worth it for Mater East. Despite squandering a 10-point, fourth-quarter lead, the Knights stayed composed, scoring on a 1-yard touchdown run from lineman Rayshawn Brown with 1:16 left in the fourth quarter to secure a 43-35 road win over the Crusaders.
“We kept each other under control, not getting too round and not letting each other put our heads down,” said Mater East junior running back Marcus Williams, who broke off a 74-yard run to set the Knights up with first-and-goal at the 1 for Brown’s TD run.
“We kept everybody up. Everybody couldn’t put their heads down or be sad. Everybody had to have an uplifting spirit. That’s what we did.”
Mater East held a 7-5 lead at the end of the first quarter on Friday when the game was put under a delay. After persistent lightning, the two teams got together and decided to finish the game on Saturday morning.
“We keep the main thing, the main thing,” said Mater East acting head coach and offensive coordinator Gio Fauolo, who said head coach Tim Hough was not with the team on Saturday. “We wanted to play. We were ready all night to play. So, when they told us ‘Hey, can we get back at it at 10 a.m. in the morning, we said ‘Hell, yeah.’”
In a game that took nearly three hours to play the final three quarters on Saturday, Mater East (1-0) took a 21-19 lead late in the third quarter on Rajahn Butler’s 21-yard touchdown pass to Williams. The Knights took a 35-25 lead early in the fourth quarter on Butler’s 36-yard touchdown pass to Justin McCullah.
But Faith Lutheran (0-1) wasn’t done. The Crusaders responded with a 24-yard field goal from North Carolina baseball commit Liam Radke.
Faith Lutheran later in the fourth forced a three-and-out and got the ball back with 5:32 to play. The Crusaders methodically moved down the field and evened the score at 35 on a 4-yard TD run from QB Dominick Folino with 2:15 left.
That was plenty of time for Mater East as Williams on the second play of the next possession went to his right and broke off a long run to set up Brown’s second short TD run of the day.
“I saw (tight end) Michael Taylor and I just ran behind him and that was just history,” said Williams, who finished with 146 rushing yards and five catches for 58 yards. “I saw (Taylor) had a good block, a good pin block, ran behind him and that was it.”
Faith Lutheran had time for one more chance and got deep into Mater East territory. But with six seconds left at Mater East’s 25-yard line, Folino’s throw to the end zone was a few yards short and caught by Camelloa Carter, who was pushed out of bounds at the 5-yard line.
“We’re definitely blessed,” Fauolo said. “We’ve been waiting all year for this. This is our first time getting some runs versus a different team. So definitely had to get a lot of our hitters out of our system, and we got to clean some stuff up.
“We played really sloppy, tons of penalties. We got to clean this up and we’ll be a better football team moving forward.”
Dominick Folino threw for 245 yards and two touchdowns on Saturday for Faith Lutheran, which was the 5A Southern Region champion last year and has played in three consecutive state title games. Gavin Folino led Faith Lutheran with six catches for 85 yards.
McCullah had four catches for 88 yards for Mater East. The Knights played two quarterbacks: Butler and James Monaghan. Butler completed 5 of 6 passes for 114 yards and two touchdowns, and Monaghan passed for 54 yards on 7 of 8 completions with an interception.
“Our defense played lights out,” Fauolo said. “The second half, they gave up a few things, but we picked it up. We played complementary football this game. Not as much as we wanted to, but when it mattered, they picked it up and we picked them up.”
Faith Lutheran (5A) and Mater East (4A) are two of the seven remaining private and charter schools that remained in the NIAA’s 5A and 4A Southern Region classifications after 30 Clark County School District teams opted for independent status. To help fill the voids on their schedules left by the CCSD schools, the 5A and 4A private and charter teams will play each other this season.
Mater East is looking to be a threat to reach the 4A state title game and unseat last year’s Southern Region champion Sloan Canyon.
“If we stay true to us, stay disciplined, keep working on getting better, have trust in one another and your coaches, the sky’s the limit,” Fauolo said. “We’re in control of our own fate.”
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
