St. Thomas Aquinas needed this one.
After suffering four losses in a row -- and the last two were not even close -- that sent the preseason No. 1 Saints tumbling out of the Kpreps.com Kansas Class 5A rankings, Aquinas earned its first win since Sept. 10, topping Class 5A No. 2 Blue Valley Northwest 35-16 on Friday.
Despite the final score, the host Saints (3-4, 2-3 Eastern Kansas League) trailed in the first half after a fast start.
Gianni Rizzi ran for touchdowns on back-to-back drives in the first quarter to put the Saints ahead 14-0.
But the Huskies (6-1, 4-1), undefeated this late in the season for the first time since 2001, answered with 16 points in a row.
Steven Whitter took Mikey Pauley’s pass 89 yards for a touchdown 63 seconds after Rizzi’s second TD.
Grant Stubblefield’s 67 yard breakaway run tied it in the first minute of the second quarter.
Then, a snap over the head of punter Max Doefler resulted in a safety, and suddenly BV Northwest was ahead 16-14.
The Saints responded quickly and kept the Huskies out of the end zone the rest of the way.
Maxwell Ford’s 46-yard TD completion to Evan Kammerer regained the lead for the Saints with 5:17 left in the half, then Aquinas padded the lead with touchdowns from Rizzi and Jack Forge in the second half to seal it.
Sean Carroll led all rushers with 114 yards and converted a pair of two-point runs for the Saints. Forge added 100 yards, while Rizzi ran for 88 and 8.8 yards per carry.
For the Huskies, Pauley passed for 211 yards, 145 of them to Whitter, and Stubblefield accounts for 135 total yards.
