UNION, Ky. – As the seconds ticked down on his team’s fifth victory of the season, Louisville St. Xavier High School football coach was ranting on the sideline.
Minutes later, after the final horn had sounded, Wallace still didn’t sound like a victorious coach.
“It was awful,” he said. “You could have seen this coming a mile away. There’s not much you can say other than we won a football game and I’m glad we won. But we took huge steps backwards as a team."
St. X got a 13-3 road victory at Ryle on Friday night, but Wallace and his team will have plenty of work on in the coming days as a matchup with Manual looms next Friday.
“Just a lack of intensity, lack of caring and wanting to win,” St. X quarterback Jack Sivori said. “He’s right about it. We need to clean it up, and I think we will. … I think we should play the way we can play every game, and we didn’t do that tonight. We have to be better.”
Adam Boone and Sivori ran for touchdowns and the defense was stout as the Tigers won the matchup of top Class 6A programs.
St. X – ranked No. 2 in Class 6A by The Associated Press – improved to 5-1. No. 5 Ryle (4-2) saw its four-game losing streak snapped.
Boone’s 2-yard touchdown run gave the Tigers a 6-0 lead with 1:21 left in the first quarter. Sivori’s 3-yard score made it 13-3 with 4:34 left in the third.
Summer Denigan’s 27-yard field goal with 1:29 left in the first half accounted for Ryle’s lone points.
Here are three takeaways from St. X’s win.
Halftime adjustment key
Wallace was hopeful he could limit Sivori’s runs Friday after the senior suffered an ankle injury in last week’s victory over Trinity.
Sivori carried just twice in the first half, but the Tigers led just 6-3 at the break.
“We planned on coming up here and not running Jack, and we thought we could get through the game without running Jack,” Wallace said. “We didn’t want to get him beat up. We had to push the button there a little bit.”
