Villa Angela-St. Joseph runs past St. Vincent-St. Mary; Bo Jackson scores 3 first half touchdowns
AKRON, Ohio - Villa Angela-St. Joseph running back Lamar “Bo” Jackson looked like a combination of Lamar Jackson and Bo Jackson in the first half of Friday night's 45-14 road win over St. Vincent-St. Mary.
Jackson, the No. 7 ranked player in the Ohio class of 2025 by 247Sports, scored three touchdowns on his first four carries of the game to help VASJ open up a 35-14 lead at the half.
The 6-foot, 205-pound running back scored on a run of 39 yards on his first carry and then again from 43 yards out later in the first quarter. Both touchdowns came off direct snaps in the wildcat formation, as starting quarterback Kylan Steuball was forced to miss the game due to injury.
“It was a new wrinkle to take some pressure off our backup,” Jackson said of the wildcat formation. “It was great, it was really fun. It’s not really different.”
The junior running back then scored from eight yards out early in the second quarter to make it 28-14. Jackson finished the game with 144 yards on 12 carries and also had a pass completion for 33 yards.
Amani Powell had 157 yards rushing and a score on 22 carries. His touchdown came from one yard out as the 5-foot-7 running back went right through the middle of the line to find the end zone.
“Honestly, I knew I was stronger,” Powell said. “We hit the weight room three times a week and everybody is in there lifting. I already knew I was gonna come through.”
The duo of Jackson and Powell combined for 301 of VASJ’s 373 yards rushing and have been doing it since before they were high school teammates, as they played together in pee-wees.
Villa Angela-St. Joseph running back Lamar "Bo" Jackson runs against Tallmadge on October 28, 2022 (Photo: Jeff Harwell)
Jeff Harwell, SBLive Sports
“This this is a duo that happened one day when we were young and we already knew we were going to stick together for life,” Powell said.
Sophomore TJ Moore had 50 yards on four carries and scored the final touchdown for VASJ.
In total, the Vikings ran for 373 yards on 44 carries.
“We have a dominant offensive line, they like to come off and push,” Powell said. “We have the greatest fullbacks, and we just kept the pace going and we kept everything moving.”
Junior quarterback Johnny Vuraich stepped up for the Vikings and threw for 87 yards and a score. His success came from putting in the work after finding out he would be named the starter last weekend.
“He was tremendous,” VASJ head coach Jeff Rotsky said. “When he found out he was gonna be the guy, he gets a group of guys on Sunday to go throw, because he wants to be right. He's texting me each night. He had one rough practice and texted me ‘hey coach, I hung my head for a little bit and I’m never going to do that again. I'm going to be better tomorrow,’ and he was.”
Standing at just 5-foot-7, Vuraich is seven inches shorter than Steuball. But the head coach doesn’t measure his quarterback by his stature.
“He just plays hard, he's a champion,” Rotsky said. “I've always said it is not the size of the dog, it's the size of the heart in the dog and he represents that.”
Defensively, the Vikings held the Fighting Irish to just 194 yards of total offense. And on special teams, VASJ allowed just eight yards per kick return and freshman punter Noah Blue booted his only punt 56 yards while kicker Nick Dunmire made the first field goal of the season for the Vikings.
“We really executed,” Rotsky said. “We just played hard. It was the first game of the year we played all three phases. There were just a lot of good things.”
DJ Johnson, Jr. scored twice for the Fighting Irish, both in the first quarter to keep the game close as VASJ led 21-14 after one quarter. Johnson, Jr. had 101 yards rushing on 17 carries.
As for Jackson, he gets plenty of questions about his name. But with this being the first game he took snaps directly from the center, he laughed when asked if he was Lamar Jackson when taking the snap and Bo Jackson when he got a handoff.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Jackson said.
-- Ryan Isley | ryan@scorebooklive.com | @sbliveoh
-- Ryan Isley | ryan@scorebooklive.com | @sbliveoh
