There’s a saying that one has to learn to crawl before he learns to walk.
That saying is a perfect analogy for St. Joseph’s football team this season.
Though the Chargers are a much-improved team this season and have recorded two victories, they are still looking for that elusive first victory in the East Suburban Catholic Conference. On Saturday, the Chargers once again played tough, but fell 7-0 to visiting Notre Dame.
Through five games, the Chargers are 2-3, but they are 0-3 in the ESCC. With the exception of a 35-0 loss to Benet, the Chargers have only been outscored 27-14 in their two other conference losses.
As consoling as those numbers are, St. Joseph coach Mark Zavagnin won’t take solace in moral victories.
“I think there’s a lot of positives but I don’t know if there’s ever a moral victory — I don’t believe in them,” Zavagnin said. “They walked off the field today saying ‘we’ve got to dig deeper.’ I didn’t have to tell them that. We’re learning. We’re getting there.”
Both teams moved the ball, but both teams also struggled to find the end zone.
The two squads combined to run 106 plays (52 for St. Joseph), but combined for just 391 yards (154 for St. Joseph). There was only one turnover, meaning both defenses played superbly.
Both teams went 4-for-13 on third down conversions, as well.
The only score of the game came with 2.5 seconds to go before halftime when Eric Hennessey found Pat Lazzara for a 16-yard score over the middle.
The score came after a St. Joseph drive stalled at its own 13-yard line. Notre Dame (4-1, 2-1) took over at the St. Joseph 45-yard line and went 45 yards in just one minute, 16 seconds, converting on third-and-10 for the touchdown.
Now on a three-game losing streak, it would be easy for St. Joseph to be down heading into their game with 4-1 St. Patrick Friday night, but that’s not the case.
“It’s very tough because we’ve worked hard the past two weeks and we’ve lost both times,” wide receiver Ron Moore said. “We’ve just got to work harder to be able to take that extra step. Once you take that extra step, then you can be successful. We’re still positive but we’ve just got to remember to keep working harder.
“To have those two wins are a big accomplishment for us, but we know that we can still do better.”
The Chargers best chance in the game came on their first drive in the second half.
After holding Notre Dame to a three-and-out, the Chargers took over on their own 40 yard line with 9:30 to go in the third quarter. It looked like they would go three-and-out themselves, but a four-yard gain by Tim Kelly on a fake punt on fourth-and-four kept the drive going.
A 21-yard pass from Cam Meredith to Dan Quintana got St. Joseph inside the 30, then an 11-yard pass from Meredith to Adam Polak got them inside the 10.
However, a holding penalty knocked them outside the 10 and four straight incompletions (including two in the end zone) ended the threat. There also could have been interference called on the fourth down incompletion, but instead Notre Dame took over and all St. Joseph had to show for its drive was the fact that six minutes came off the clock.
“Right now it’s at the point where I don’t know what to say to the kids anymore,” Zavagnin said. “This is two weeks in a row where we’ve played great. After they lost to Benet, I didn’t know how they were going to react. For two weeks now, we’ve been a play or two away from winning a football game.
“This one stings probably more than last week (a 20-14 loss to Marian Catholic). We were right there. We have so many guys going both ways that we have these long drives and get inside the 10 or the 20 and their body starts asking ‘how much more can we take?’ We just don’t have anyone else to throw in there right now. These kids are playing a lot of football.”

Game breakdown
Score by quarter 1 2 3 4
ND 0 7 0 0
STJ 0 0 0 0
2ND QUARTER ND Eric Hennessey 16-yard pass to Pat Lazzara (John Jennings PAT), 2.5 
Passing ND Hennessey 10-21, 87 yards; STJ Cam Meredith 14-25, 118 yards
Rushing ND Julian Burgos 18-123, Anthony Pellegrini 7-39, Joe Edwards 1-1, Hennessey 5-(minus-13); STJ Tim Kelly 14-42, Ron Moore 4-9, Anthony Boddy 2-(minus-1), Sterling Jackson 1-(minus-7), Meredith 4-(minus-7)
Receiving ND Joe Gutierrez 4-33, Tim Hirsch 2-34, Lazzara 1-16, A.J Fedoruk 1-4, Burgos 1-2;STJ Boddy 7-54, Moore 3-21, Dan Quintana 2-25, Adam Polak 1-11, Ryan Cole 1-1