Little Hoyas pull off big upset

Coming off an upset of then No. 1 Gilman the previous week, the Calvert Hall football team, which moved into the state’s vacant top spot as a result, was itself upended by host Georgetown Prep Friday afternoon, 21-14, largely through a mix of turnovers and penalties in this MIAA A Conference contest.

None of those miscues was more important than an 85-yard interception touchdown return by Little Hoyas senior defensive back Joel Blockowicz with 3:37 left in the third quarter that gave Georgetown Prep (5-2, 2-1 MIAA A) the final seven-point lead.

Blockowicz has returned three interceptions for touchdowns against Calvert Hall during his playing career, including two at the varsity level.

“He overthrew the man and I was just breaking on the ball,” Blockowicz said of his interception of a high throw by Cardinals quarterback Thomas Stuart, who was under heavy pressure at the time of the pass.

“I jumped up, caught it and it took it all the way. They had some big turnovers. You don’t get too many opportunities to play the No. 1 team in the state and … we took advantage of that opportunity.”

Calvert Hall (7-1, 2-1) also lost two fumbles, the second coming on the Georgetown Prep 24-yard line late in the third quarter after the Blockowicz touchdown, and committed nine penalties for 90 yards. Two of those penalties came on the team’s second to last drive that started on the Calvert Hall 30-yard line but ended on its own nine with 2:27 remaining in the game.

“What you have there is a solid Georgetown Prep team,” said Cardinals coach Donald Davis, whose squad fell into a three-way tie with the Little Hoyas and Gilman (4-2, 1-1) for first place in the MIAA A.

“They’re very well coached and they’re very disciplined and if you turn the ball over and you commit penalties, they’re going to make you pay for it and they did. They made us pay for our mistakes.

“They made more plays than we did and we made mistakes that put us in awful circumstances. It’s got nothing to do with letting down or overlooking anybody. We were ready to play today.”

The Cardinals did make things interesting, driving the ball all the way to the Georgetown Prep six-yard line with around 12 seconds left in the game on the passing of Stuart. But on second down, Stuart dropped off a pass to Kyle Levere, who was immediately gang tackled at the four-yard line and Calvert Hall could not manage another play as time ran out.

“We run that play a lot and it works a lot,” said Stuart, who completed 16-of-25 passes for 151 yards. “They just defended it well.

We’ve scored a lot of touchdowns off of it. It just didn’t work
today.”

Georgetown Prep scored the first points of the day on a yard plunge by Bobby Gribbin (96 rushing yards) four seconds into the second quarter.

Calvert Hall, however, ended the half with 14 unanswered points on Stuart touchdown passes of 12 and five yards to Trevor Williams and Garrett Flannery, respectively.

The Little Hoyas took the opening drive of the second half 74 yards on 10 run plays to tie the score at 14-apiece. Gribbin ran over the right side for the three-yard touchdown with 6:26 left in the third quarter. He got the drive going with a 45-yard run.

“It’s the most important statistic – the turnover ratio,” Little Hoyas coach Dan Paro said. “Our guys didn’t turn the ball over and that kept us in the game. We fought and we didn’t make mistakes. They had a lot.”.