Quarterback Schuetz guides Breese Mater Dei past Explorers

Brent Feeney, Sports Writer

Sep 4, 2016 11:20 AM Sep 4, 2016 11:36 AM

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ALTON – There's plenty of reasons why Breese Mater Dei reached last year's IHSA Class 4A football semifinals.

One of them may well be their quarterback, Colin Schuetz, who threw for two touchdown passes and ran for two more touchdowns in a 35-14 Knight win over Marquette Catholic at Public School Stadium Saturday night. Schuetz ran nine times for 147 yards and two touchdowns and went 14-for-25 for 176 yards and two more TDs as the Knights went to 2-0 on the year

“We game planned for (Schuetz) and we didn't play crisp in the first half,” said Explorer coach Darrell Angleton, “and in the first quarter, the offense was awful. Past that, we played pretty well; we had a couple of tough breaks at the wrong time.

“We had to stop (Schuetz); he led that team last year as a junior – hats off to him.”

“He does a mid-line read in his zone read,” Angleton said of Schuetz's ability to pick up yardage on the ground, “and so he's reading the linebacker, so if he can find some room in the middle – and they'll actually pull their guard and tackle to give him some blockers instead of blocking for the running backs in the zone.

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“So it's almost a little different; it's almost like an inverted zone, but he's (Schuetz) the guy you've got to stop.”

One thing Angleton knows that the Explorers are going to have to do to succeed is play a full game of football. “We're going to have to learn to play a full game, Angleton said, “and that's probably the thing that we talked to them about in the locker room. We're playing a game of halves, and that's not going to cut it.”

Treven Swingler and D'Avion Peebles are certainly a go-to pair for the Explorers on offense; Swingler ran an 11-yard touchdown right before halftime and for a 27-yard touchdown late in the game. “He's always been in the mix,” Angleton said. “With him and Peebles, I've got a good duo in the backfield; in this game, it seemed like the spread package was there, and we went to it. But we've got to be consistent with it.”

Schuetz opened the scoring late in the opening term with a 25-yard touchdown run, then gave the ball to Jake Wieter for a 17-yard touchdown run in the opening stages of the second term to gave Mater Dei a 14-0 lead. It became 21-0 midway through the term when Schuetz found Lucas Theising from nine yards out; Logan Johnson connected on all three conversion tries.

Swingler got the Explorers on the board with 1:53 left in the half when he took a handoff from Brady McAfee and went to his right, then emerged from a pack and ran it in from 11 yards out to bring the Explorers to 21-7, but the Knights closed out the half when Schuetz hit Theising with a 48-yard touchdown pass in the final minute of the half to make it 29-7 after a two-point conversion run from Weiter.

Schuetz ran in from 15 yards out midway through the final quarter to make it 35-7 after a two-point conversion pass fell short; Swingler finished out the scoring with a 27-yard scamper into the end zone with 4:54 left in the game to make it 35-14 after a Liam Maher conversion.

The Explorers open Prairie State Conference play with a game at home against Nokomis at 7 p.m. Friday.