Catholic's Price powers Rockets

The trend this season has been Little Rock Catholic fading after good start.

[HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL SCOREBOARD: Full results + recaps, photos and more]

Friday night at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, the Rockets did not start well but finished strong and crushed Fort Smith Southside 45-21 to end a five-game losing streak.

"Just the whole start of the game was bad, on both sides of the ball,'' Catholic Coach John Fogelman said. "I'm really proud of the kids for battling back.

"We have played some really good football teams and at times we played some really good football, we just haven't been able to sustain it. And we've started out good and didn't finish well but tonight we didn't start good but we finished better."

Catholic senior quarterback Taylor Price threw four touchdown passes to lead the Rockets (2-6, 1-4 7A-Central). Price completed 12 of 14 passes for 262 yards. He also ran for 49 yards on 9 carries.

"He played a really good game last week against North Little Rock before it got out of hand so I think that gave him some confidence coming into this game."

When you add in the running of sophomore Samy Johnson, who had 127 yards on 17 carries and 2 touchdowns, it turned into an easy game of pitch and catch for the Rockets. Junior tight end Adam Shepherd caught 4 passes for 71 yards and 2 scores.

"That [passing] was one thing we were concerned about,'' Fogelman said. "We thought we might have a good running game and then our back gets hurt early. And things didn't look good early."

Southside (2-6, 1-4) was able to move the ball but suffered five turnovers -- four fumbles and an interception. Junior defensive end Peter Fritz recovered three of the fumbles for Catholic.

The Mavericks took the lead on Taye Gatewood's 12-yard run after a Catholic turnover at midfield.

Catholic junior Christopher Elser drilled a 42-yard field goal and after Fritz's first fumble recovery, the Rockets took the lead on on a 13-yard pass to Shepherd. Fritz recovered another fumble and Johnson's first TD and Elser's PAT made it 17-7.

Southside answered four plays later with a 55-yard pass from Graves Schmidly to Austin Diaz.

On the next play, Price connected with sophomore William Plafcan for an 80-yard score and the Rockets led 24-14 at halftime.

Shepherd grabbed another score, Johnson ran one in from 18 yards and a 22-yard pass to Luke Schildknecht capped the scoring.

"The year has not gone the way we wanted but we still have a lot to play for right now,'' Fogelman said. "There are still two more games left and there are some playoffs spots available."

Sports on 10/22/2016

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