Catholic football wears down South Walton in FHSAA regional semis

Pensacola Catholic football ended its postgame huddle with the phrase «leave no doubt.»

Fitting after the Crusaders outscored South Walton 27-0 in a 34-7 win over the Seahawks in the Region 1-2A semifinals. Pensacola Catholic will travel to Bolles next week for the regional final.

“I told our guys take a deep breath at halftime,” Crusaders head coach Bobby Clayton said. “Take a deep breath, we’re gonna come out, we’re gonna do exactly what we wanted to do, run the football, take over the game.”

The Crusaders dominated the second half, just like they did in the regular season meeting between the two teams, a 24-13 Catholic win on Oct. 24.

Caleb Willoughby ran for an eight-yard touchdown on fourth-and-1 with 8:35 left in the third quarter, then Crusaders quarterback Jaylin Brown found Donnelle Gulley for a 47-yard touchdown on the team’s next play from scrimmage to extend the lead to 20-7 with 6:38 left in the third quarter.

Jayden Coleman returned an interception for a touchdown with 9:55 left in the fourth quarter for the first of four South Walton turnovers, which all came in the final frame. Brown ran for a two-yard touchdown with 2:13 left following the third Seahawks turnover.

South Walton went 74 yards in just six plays to start the game, with Max Baker taking a JD Brown pass 35 yards for a touchdown to cap off the drive. Catholic’s Caden Jasso caught a short pass from Jaylin Brown and took it all the way for a 67-yard touchdown to tie the game with 7:55 left in the second quarter.

Despite a new coaching staff, graduating 19 seniors and another 12 players not returning, the Crusaders will play for their second regional championship in the last three years on Black Friday.

“Everybody doubted us,” senior defensive back Gavin Lashley said. “They said it wouldn’t be the same, everybody left. We came together, we knew what we could do and we did it.”

Here’s what else to know from the Pensacola Catholic’s win.

Catholic defense wears down South Walton

The Seahawks came out firing on all cylinders, getting extra yards on quick passes to strike first.

But after that, the Crusaders slowly broke South Walton. The Seahawks punted five times, turned the ball over on downs once and ended the game with turnovers on four straight possessions.

Catholic’s defense has allowed just 12.7 points per game this season and just 13 points in the last three weeks.

“They play together,” Clayton said. “They fly around. Gavin Lashley’s our leader. Kaleb Johnson, challenged him to keep the quarterback under control and he did just that. Outstanding job by our guys for sure.”

On South Walton’s second drive, Pensacola Catholic honed in on better tackling on short passes to make sure they didn’t turn into big gains. Once that was limited, the Crusaders dialed up the pressure on Seahawks quarterback JD Brown, leading to a huge stop on fourth and one on the final play of the first half.

Junior linebacker Tripp Dalton shook off a running back in pass protection and sacked Brown to keep the score 7-7 at halftime.

Catholic took the lead early in the second half, giving its defense more reign to get aggressive. Brown didn’t have a lot of time to throw and struggled to stay poised.

South Walton completed 13 of 16 pass attempts for 121 yards and a touchdown in the first half. The Seahawks completed just eight of 20 pass attempts for 66 yards and three interceptions in the second half.

“We knew we had to stop the short passes,” Lashley said. “They came out in short passes, we knew we should’ve done that. Our defensive coordinator, he fixed stuff around and we just did what we had to do.”

South Walton’s last four possessions all ended in turnovers. Coleman returned an interception for a touchdown with 9:55 left in the fourth quarter, then Kaleb Johnson intercepted a pass on the Seahawks next play from scrimmage.

Johnson recovered a fumble and returned it to the South Walton 33-yard line to set up the Crusaders final touchdown.

Lashley’s interception on the last play of the game capped off a dominant performance, even if it wasn’t the final fireworks he wanted.

“I trying to score,” Lashley said. “But my legs gave out.”

Willoughby steps up after Crandall injury

Early signs pointed towards a big night for junior running back Ethan Crandall, who ran the ball on Catholic’s first four offensive plays.

But late in the first quarter on a play that was called dead because of a false start, Crandall took a handoff and was hit hard in his lower half by a South Walton defender. He had to be helped off the field and was barely putting any weight on his right leg.

Crandall has carried his team’s offense at times this fall, and entered this game with 1,275 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns.

The Crusaders struggled to run the ball the rest of the first half, but junior Caleb Willoughby answered the call in the second half. Willoughby, who started this year as Catholic’s No. 1 running back before missing three games with an injury of his own, ran for 23 and 20 yards on the first two plays from scrimmage in the second half.

Then on fourth-and-1 he ran for an eight-yard touchdown to put the Crusaders in front for good with 8:35 in the third quarter. He finished with 87 yards and a touchdown.

“Willoughby was the starter at the beginning of the year and Crandall took over for him when he got hurt,” Clayton said. “So now back with our boy Willoughby with the ball. He’s very well capable of it. He’s very explosive and dynamic and I think we saw that tonight.”

Road trip experience

Pensacola Catholic will travel 364 miles to Jacksonville to face Bolles for the Region 1-2A, a road trip they have experience with from earlier this season.

The Crusaders played at Providence School of Jacksonville on Sept. 19, traveling 374 miles and coming out with a 35-0 win.

The road trip may be almost the same, though the level of talent will be much higher. Bolles only loss is to 4A power St. Augustine. The Sharks average 45.4 points per game and have given up just 15.1 points per game.

Sophomore Xander Edwards entered Friday night with 1,997 rushing yards and 32 touchdowns, including a 522-yard, eight touchdown performance Baldwin on Sept. 26, breaking Derrick Henry’s single-game rushing record.

Catholic will do most of the travel to Jacksonville on Thanksgiving before playing the next day.

“We were in Mass this morning,” Clayton said. “The priest asked us what’s our hopes and at that moment I prayed for my hopes is I want to play on Thanksgiving. I want to travel to Jacksonville and take on one of the best teams in the state and see how we match up.”

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola Catholic rolls South Walton in FHSAA regional semifinals