DeSmet’s Durron Neal is going to have a fine college career at the University of Oklahoma. Maybe even beyond NCAA Division I into the NFL. He’s that good.
And on Nov. 11, 2011, in an epic game already being described as an instant “classic,” Durron Neal (right) very nearly pulled off a Missouri state Class 6A playoff victory all by himself.
Durron here (243 yards rushing), Durron there (five touchdowns), Durron everywhere (one touchdown pass). Durron, Durron, hungry like the wolf.
But the SLUH Jr. Billikens were hungrier.
And so, with a full harvest moon lighting the night, with an estimated 4,000 fans in the bleachers and lining the track at SLUH Stadium, with the state semifinal berth just 64 seconds from being decided, 5-8, 154-pound SLUH kicker Dan Tlapek came running out on the field with his team down 46-44.
“I just didn’t want to think about anything,” Tlapek told STLhighschoolsports.com writer Scott Fitzgerald after the game. “I just closed my eyes and kicked it.”
Tlapek opened his eyes in time in plenty of time to see the kick (left) sail 47 yards through the uprights and give his team a 47-46 lead with a little over a minute left. It was his fourth 40-plus yard field goal of the night.
One minute? Plenty of time for Neal to take the game back for DeSmet. That’s exactly what every man, woman, student and child — on both sides of the stadium — was thinking.
But on the Spartans’ final possession, Neal never touched the ball. After a quarterback scramble from the 20 followed by a respectable completion, DeSmet had the ball on their 40 with about 45 seconds on the clock. That’s when DeSmet quarterback Connor Harrison threw into the arms of SLUH’s Stefan Sansone at the SLUH 40, and every man, woman, student and child exhaled — or cringed.
Quarterback Trevor McDonagh took a knee on the next play and just like that, it was over. A sweet victory for SLUH fans: Christmas morning, the moment you fall in love and Game 6 of the 2011 World Series — all at once.
SLUH players danced in unison, SLUH parents hugged and cried in the stands and SLUH students stormed the field after The Season’s second defeat of DeSmet in three weeks. The first — a come-from-behind, double-overtime thriller Oct. 21 — put SLUH in the driver’s seat for the district title and home-field playoff advantage.
And that game made this night — and the ensuing postgame celebration under a harvest moon — possible.
Every one of Neal’s eye-popping plays was matched by a SLUH team-effort counterpart. Among them:
- McDonagh’s steady leadership and execution (above right), 368 yards passing with five touchdown passes. His scramble late in the 4th quarter after DeSmet had taken the lead helped set-up Tlapek’s final field goal.
- Sansone’s 13 receptions for 276 yards — a new school record — and four touchdowns, including a one-handed grab in the endzone late in the second quarter that no one could believe he came down with. Sansone (below left) was all over the field all game long, and in perfect position to make the interception that ensured the SLUH win.
- Cameron Stubbs, whose successful execution of the bubble screen pass continually stymied the DeSmet defense. Stubbs and McDonagh also teamed up for a fourth-quarter, momentum-shifting lateral that Stubbs then threw downfield into the waiting arms of Sansone for another score.
- Matthew Hinkebein’s 4th-quarter, corner-of-the-endzone touchdown reception, announcing to the DeSmet coaching cabal yet another SLUH offensive weapon.
- Tlapek’s four field goals — 40, 44 and 48 to go along with the game-winning 47-yarder — and three extra points. He was the Ice Man, as cool as could be, calmly lining up each attempt behind holder Paul Simon, stepping back and letting go.
Not bad for a kid who didn’t even tell his parents he was switching from soccer to football when high school began. Tlapek grew up a soccer player, kicking the ball with regularity from the time he was 4, his mom Tina said, playing on select teams a couple of years and winning a grade-school city-county title with Mary Queen of Peace parish in Webster Groves.
“He would practice by kicking the ball over our house,” Tina Tlapek said. “He loved soccer. So we thought he’d stick with it when he came to SLUH. He didn’t even tell us he was going out for football.”
A young man of few words (right). Even a few hours afterward, at the postgame dinner, he came up to Tina and his dad Tom and just smiled — quite low-key for a kid who just booted the biggest field goal in his school’s 193-year history.
But then again, he started out as a kid kicking a ball over his home. Not sure what it takes to clear a house, but the guess is at least 47 yards.
Pictures by Nancy Winkelmann. Like to see more? View SLUH varsity pix at nancywinkelmann.zenfolio.com.
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