Chaminade's Louis D'Agostino has three sacks, leads stout defense in win over St. John the Baptist

There’s not much the Chaminade football team wants to remember from last season, but there are some things you can’t forget. And a 27-point loss to St. John the Baptist is a memory that can’t be erased, it can only be corrected the following year.

“We definitely wanted to dominate,” senior linebacker Louis D’Agostino said. “That was really the main talk of this week, what they did last year. Even walking in today, we heard it right away, so with last year’s game, we all felt we needed to do something and that’s why we really wanted to dominate them this week.”

The Chaminade defense held strong in its 24-12 victory over host St. John the Baptist in CHSFL action on Saturday afternoon.

“From the beginning of the game, I knew what type of game it would be,” said D’Agostino, who had three sacks. “It was chippy right away and I love those types of games. I was ready, I was really ready. I was going into this game mad and I knew I had to make a statement.”

Chaminade (3-1, 1-0) opened the scoring with a 3-yard touchdown run by quarterback Tim Murphy with 4:56 left in the first quarter. St. John the Baptist (1-2, 0-1) answered before the end of the opening quarter with a 3-yard touchdown run by quarterback Maxwell Bowers with 1:38 left, in a drive set up by an interception by Jayden Miller. William Handley blocked the ensuing PAT to keep Chaminade ahead 7-6.

Peter Cwietniewicz extended Chaminade’s lead to 14-6 after a 36-yard touchdown run with 7:51 left in the second quarter. He broke a pair of tackles near the line of scrimmage before breaking another tackle at the 15 yard line and scoring untouched from there.

“As soon as that snap was taken, I just started running and never looked back,” Cwietniewicz said. “As soon as I got past the line, I made my cut and I broke that first tackle and I was like, why shouldn’t I score? I should get into the end zone here. I just kept making moves, refusing to go down.”

Justin Jones' 37-yard field goal gave Chaminade a 17-6 lead with 58.5 seconds left in the second quarter. The Flyers took a 24-6 lead with 4:38 left in the third quarter when Murphy found Brady Murray for an 8-yard touchdown pass.

“We definitely needed that insurance,” Murphy said. “We needed some space for our defense. They’re not going to be perfect all the time but they were about as perfect as you could have been today.”

After going 1-8 last season, Chaminade is returning to its winning ways under first-year head coach Tom Claro.

“We capitalized on short fields but the defense gave us a lot of good field position and special teams helped,” Claro said. “We have to do a better job of sustaining drives on offense but a win’s a win, and in this league, you can’t take any of them for granted, so we’re happy.”