Young St. Andrew's team falls to Pisgah

St. Andrew’s were unable to find rhythm on offense and suffered their first region defeat, falling 34-6 to Pisgah on Thursday night.

Both defenses went back and forth through the early parts of the game, but a stingy Pisgah defense and stellar run game proved to be too much for the Saints. 

A phenomenal catch by Stone Myrick on a pass from Will Crowder in the first half was the only scoring play on the night for the Saints. 

Other than the one long passing touchdown, St. Andrew’s was unable to find any offensive rhythm for the rest of the night.

“We just have to do a better job of executing,” St. Andrew’s Head Coach Channing Ward said. “We have a lot of young guys that are still figuring things out, but I think we will figure it out and learn how to execute and finish.”

Defensively the Saints showed some real flashes of physicality, but were unable to consistently string together stops on that side of the ball against a Pisgah team that almost exclusively runs the ball and is very strong in that area.

“We have to find more consistency and just keep bringing it every time,” Ward said. “Especially when you’re playing a team that can run the ball like that, you have to have consistency.”

Even though it was a tough region loss for the Saints, there is plenty of reason for optimism within the program.

St. Andrew’s is a very young team with a first-year head coach in Ward that has already matched its win total from last year with four wins so far on the season. 

There are only seven seniors listed on the Saint’s roster and even with the program having to rely on underclassmen to step up, they have had a successful season to this point and will only continue to improve from here.

“They’re playing great, we just have to keep working,” Ward said. “When we get hit in the mouth, we have to learn how to get up and hit them back in the mouth and these young guys will start to figure that out.”

St. Andrew’s moves to 4-3 overall and 1-1 in region play following the loss and have more key region matchups coming down the homestretch of the regular season schedule.

The Saints will host post Puckett next week and then travel to Raleigh the following week to round out region play. They will then wrap up the regular season with a non-region matchup at home against Richland before the playoffs begin.