The St. Anthony Saints were chasing their opening night victory down the sideline.

After taking the lead on one of Thomas Brown’s three touchdowns with minutes left in the game, the Saints held a two-point advantage.  But Downy Calvery Chapel’s A.J. Laidlaw broke though a huge hole on the first play of the ensuing drive and looked to be running for the game-winning score.

Close behind, however, was Aleric Chapple who ripped the ball from Laidlaw’s grasp and recovered the fumble.  The Saints ran the clock out and celebrated their 29-27 victories at Clark Field on Friday night.

Besides making the defensive play of the game, Chapple also led the Saints rushing attack with 90 yards on 14 carries.  Brown added 58 yards to go along with his three scores as the veteran St. Anthony offensive line imposed their will on the Grizzlies all night long.

DCC was able to give the Saint defense some problems with the dreaded Wing-T formation and took a 14-8 lead into halftime.  They scored early in the second half on a long counter play, but the Saints stayed in the game with it’s own sustained running attack.

With a little under eight minutes to go, Brown plunged in from a yard out and added the two-point conversion to make it 23-20 St. Anthony.  But Laidlaw made one move on the ensuing kickoff and took it 78 yards back to the house to regain the lead for DCC, 27-23. 

Again the Saints countered with running of their own and went 60 yards in about six minutes with almost exclusively run plays.  Brown scored from six yards to make it 29-27 before Chapple could rip the win away from Laidlaw.