FAIRHOPE — The St. Michael Cardinals used a balanced offensive attack with three rushing touchdowns and three passing touchdowns to take down the Satsuma Gators 42-8 Thursday night in Class 4A Region 1 action.

Senior Martin Corte registered two rushing touchdowns in the first half and freshman Gunner Rivers threw three touchdown passes, all to different receivers, to complement a near shutout from the St. Michael defense. The Cardinals immediately answered the Gators’ fourth-quarter touchdown with a Nick Russo rushing score.

St. Michael registered its third 40-point effort this season and improved to 13-0 all-time when scoring at least 40 points.

“We’re explosive,” Corte said of the statement that the points made. “We get the ball out there, we score touchdowns and it speaks for itself. We get big points and we win games.”

Cardinals need not take flight on first drive

It was Corte who was a workhorse off the bat and carried the ball 6 times for 32 yards of the Cardinals’ 7-play, 50-yard scoring drive to open the game. St. Michael head coach Philip Rivers said with the running rhythm his team found early, he opted to keep the ball on the ground for the first series.

“I said, ‘Let’s just keep running it and we’ll get to the pass in the second drive,’” the head coach said of what went into his decision. “Then we got into a good mix, Brody Jones got going and we had some explosive plays and they were able to spread the ball around.”

Big Man Touchdown helps build big lead

Gunner threw his touchdown passes to help the Cardinals score on their last two drives of the first half and the opening series of the second half to build a 35-0 lead over the Gators with 4:09 left in the third quarter. After Brody Jones outraced Satsuma defenders to the end zone on a 67-yard touchdown, Noah Moss found himself alone in the corner of the end zone for a 16-yard scoring hookup.

But it was the third passing touchdown that took the cake where left offensive tackle Rocco Faiupu was on the receiving end of a touchdown pass.

Gunner took the snap and rolled to his right which allowed Faiupu to curl around the left side of the line and find open space. Behind the lead blocking of center Carson Maloney and guard Parker Baas, Faiupu rumbled his way to pay dirt and the St. Michael sideline went crazy.

“We ran that play, a similar version of it, against Kansas my last college football game so I said, ‘Hey let’s see if we can get Rocco in.’ Let’s see if we can get it to the right spot and the game situation had to be right,” Philip said. “It was fun to get him in, you saw the reaction from the guys because we’ve been running it in practice and everybody was looking like, ‘What are y’all doing,’ so it was good that it worked.”

St. Michael defense brings the house to shut down Satsuma rushing attack

On the other side of the ball, the Cardinal defense held Satsuma off the board until the final 10 minutes of regulation where defensive end Zach Taylor said the schemes and pressure dialed up by defensive coordinator Simon Cortopassi helped make the difference.

“They like to run that ball, they like to double team and with our defense, we love blitzing. We’re going to blitz the house if we need to,” Taylor said. “Our guys flew around, there’s stuff to clean up on as always and stuff to grow on, especially as such a young team we’ve got so much to grow on, but I think we’re heading in the right direction.”

With a 28-0 lead at the halftime intermission, Taylor said the St. Michael staff emphasized to maintain the pressure.

“Keep your foot on the gas, we’re going,” Taylor said. “We had blood in the water, we saw it and just had to take advantage of it.”

Catholic Clash on deck

Heading into next week’s contest against McGill-Toolen Catholic, the Cardinals noted the importance of Thursday’s win serving as two in a row before taking on the Yellow Jackets.

“Two in a row, and both region games, so that boosts us up and puts us on a streak going into McGill,” Corte said. “It should be good. Everything’s high right now so couldn’t be better.”

“I think it’s great, the last few games we hadn’t done too well as a defense as a whole,” Taylor said. “I think today we came out here and got a good confidence booster for us heading into a big game like McGill.”

“Our big message as a staff has been that we need to start winning some games in a row, but we also need to get better along the way,” the head coach said. “You can win but kind of be sloppy and it’s like, ‘Did we get better last week?’ So, I think we did get better tonight but we’ve got a ways to go and we’ve got a tough one with McGill next week.”

Up next

St. Michael improved to 3-2 overall and 2-1 within Class 4A Region 1. Next week’s tilt with McGill-Toolen will serve as a break in region play but also marks the fifth of five straight home games for the Cardinals.

The Yellow Jackets will enter their Week 5 game against Murphy on Friday with a 1-2 overall record where losses to Montgomery Catholic (21-0) and St. Paul’s (14-6) preceded a win over Robertsdale (59-0).

Money quotes

“Stay locked in, we have a game next week like we just had one this week so we have to play each game at a time,” Corte said of the team’s mentality.

“Young players everywhere,” Taylor said. “It’s a small senior class but the young players on this team just ball out and it’s insane what they can do.”

“(Gunner) played good, he made some freshman mistakes — but I say that and I also see guys that are like 39-years-old that might make the same mistakes,” Philip said pointing to himself. “Part of it is just playing quarterback but he played good, certainly some things we can clean up.”