Quarterback Steven Armbruster had to watch from the sidelines on Sept. 12 when St. Rita lost a CCL/ESCC game to Brother Rice.
So did receiver Walter Jones.
Both were nursing injuries and couldn’t do much except cheer their teammates on that night. And there wasn’t much cheering being done in the 28-10 home loss.
But both are healthy. The two are connecting like crazy and the Mustangs offense is in high gear for a rematch against the Crusaders on the biggest stage possible — the state championship.
The Mustangs (9-4) beat Batavia 54-34 on Nov. 22 in the Class 7A semifinals in Chicago. They face Brother Rice (12-1) at 4 p.m. Nov. 29 in the title game at Hancock Stadium in Normal. The game will be carried live on WCIU, Ch. 26.
Coupled with a 56-42 home quarterfinal win over Hersey, the Mustangs offense is showing some big-time muscle and the Armbruster-to-Jones connection is scalding. They teamed up 10 times for 296 yards and four touchdowns in the two games leading up to the championship.
“Walter is my guy and he knows that,” Armbruster said. “It almost seems like … Walter is always doing something right. I’m always looking to find Walter and he knows that.”
One of Jones’ six catches for 111 yards against the Bulldogs (10-3) was a touchdown that wasn’t scripted.
“The chemistry is good,” Jones said of his relationship with Armbruster. “That touchdown that I had was like a fake screen with the (deep) ball. But the deep ball wasn’t open, so I had to find a way to get open and he had to find a way to get me the ball.”
“A lot of it is experience,” Armbruster said. “Me and Walter are three-year starters.”
Brandon Johnson Jr. ran for 95 yards and a score, Donovan Evans had six catches for 89 years and a touchdown, and Armbruster passed for 249 yards and four scores. He also ran in a fifth touchdown and has nine TDs in two weeks. Jake Roney caught Armbruster’s other TD pass.
The QB also credited the line and said that the offense is now a “well-oiled machine.”
This is St. Rita’s fifth trip to the title game, and the Mustangs brought home championship trophies in 1978 and 2006.
Few thought when the Mustangs opened the season at 2-4 that they would be playing in Normal two days after Thanksgiving.
“When you look back, we were 2-4 and everyone wrote us off,” Mustangs coach Martin Hopkins said. “These kids believed in themselves and as coaches, that’s all you could ask for.”
Jones said the bad start woke the team up.
“Everyone was against us and we just worked hard every day to better ourselves,” he said, “It took a 2-4 (record) for motivation. Now we’re on our way for a state championship.
“This definitely means a lot. There are not too many St. Rita football teams that start at 2-4 and make it to state. There are not a lot of St. Rita football teams that won state. We’re just going to keep it going and make history.”