Nick Rinella runs the ball for the La Salle Explorers. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt)

by Jonathan Vander Lugt

By some accounts, the La Salle College High School football Explorers weren't even supposed to be there.

“We started working out and didn't have a head coach for four months,” quarterback Chris Ferguson said. “Once coach Steinmetz was hired, we still didn't have an offensive coordinator.”

“People were writing us off at the beginning of the season,” receiver Nick Rinella said.

“But we came out, won the Catholic League, won Districts, and though we came up short here,” he added, “I wouldn't trade it for anything.”

Who would? Even still, ending a season with a loss, regardless of the accolades garnered, still stings. In Saturday afternoon's state quarterfinal between La Salle and Parkland High School (Allentown) it was the Explorers who dropped what ended up being their season's final game in overtime, 16-13.

The teams played tough, back-and-forth football for all four quarters. La Salle scored a touchdown on its first drive, a 36-yard swing pass to Rinella. The Trojans answered late in the second, when quarterback Devante Cross rolled in from 8 yards out.

That's how the score stayed until late in the fourth, when Matt Savage drilled a 26-yard field goal to give La Salle its second lead of the day.

“It was a battle,” Ferguson said. “It was a fight. For four quarters, there was nothing held back. Our defense played unbelievably, but at the end, someone's got to come out on top and they made the plays.”

Not without a bit of help, it seemed. On the ensuing Parkland drive, on fourth-and-four from the La Salle 30, Cross lofted a pass down the sideline in the direction of Kenny Yeboah. Yeboah turned to face the ball, and backpedaled a bit as he watched it sail five yards over his head.

La Salle ball, right? Nope. As he was moving backwards, Yeboah backed into Isaiah Jones and knocked Jones over. The play drew a flag for pass interference against Jones, setting the ball up at La Salle's 15 with a first-and-10. A personal foul called against the arguing Explorer sideline gave the Trojans another seven-and-a-half yards, and four plays later, Donavan Berger knocked through a 20-yard field goal to knot the game.

Mind you, there's no “uncatchable ball” rule as far as pass interference goes (it's a bit too subjective to try to regulate), but the call was questionable nonetheless.

“Hey, the official made the call, and it is what it is,” Steinmetz said. “We still held them to just three points there.”

He's right – it was La Salle's job to respond to the situation at hand, and the team came up just short. They were held to just a field goal in their first crack in the overtime frame, and two plays into Parkland's, Cross bullied in from four out, putting an unceremonious end to the Explorers' run.

Despite the sour end, Steinmetz was still proud.

“Boy, our kids played hard,” he said. “That was a great high school football game. Both sides really competed. At the end of the day, I'm really proud of our team. That's really what we ask of them, first and foremost.”

Rinella, the hero from La Salle's heart-pounding win over St. Joe's Prep to win the Philadelphia Catholic League AAAA title two weeks ago came up huge again. He caught four balls for 70 yards and a score, ran for another 15 on one carry, and that's just on one side of the ball.

Matching up as the cornerback against Yeboah, he held the Temple-bound behemoth (Yeboah has at least six inches and 20 pounds on Rinella) to just five catches for 60 yards. He even beat Yeboah on a jump ball for a pick in the first quarter, and also came away with a huge 10-yard sack on a fourth-quarter third down and batted two balls away to force the fourth down mentioned above.

“I knew the only thing I had on Yeboah physically was speed,” he said. “So my plan was just to play off of him and keep up with my speed. It was a great battle the whole way.”

The battle caps what was still a terrific season for La Salle. The team won the PCL and city AAAA titles for the first time since 2012, so there's still nothing to be ashamed of.

“Everyone was doubting us,” Ferguson said. “I saw things predicting three wins on season.”

“To prove all that wrong was unbelievable,” he went on. “It's a shame it has to end.”