Bishop Gorman football beats East St. Louis, hosts Mater Dei next

Bishop Gorman sophomore Zyren Menor had worked himself into the Gaels’ starting receiving group through the team’s first three games.

But when the Gaels needed a spark in the first half against East St. Louis (Illinois) on Friday night, Menor came up with a big special teams play.

Menor returned a kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown late in the first half to give Gorman a two-score lead.

It wouldn’t be any closer, as the Gaels rolled in the second half to a 35-10 win over East St. Louis, rated as the top team in Illinois by MaxPreps, at Fertitta Field.

“We should have had a touchdown on our first drive, but it’s a heavyweight fight,” Gorman coach Brent Browner said. “They’re swinging, we’re swinging, I think we did that. Our adjustments, we came out at halftime, and they worked a little bit with what we had to do. You got to give it to (East St. Louis), they didn’t quit.”

The win sets up a showdown with defending national champion Mater Dei (California), which is ranked No. 1 nationally by MaxPreps and USA Today. Mater Dei fell behind Centennial (Corona, California) 28-0 on Friday night and lost 43-36.

The Gaels (4-0) are ranked No. 2 nationally by USA Today and No. 3 by MaxPreps and likely will climb to No. 1 following their win and Mater Dei’s loss. They are 0-4 all-time in meetings against Mater Dei, which includes a 31-15 loss in California last year that ended the Gaels’ hunt for a fifth national championship.

“That’s it, we’re trying to beat them for the first time,” Browner said. “We (got) to keep it simple, not do too much, don’t do anything more that needs to be (done). We got a lot of respect for those guys. They’ve done a great job. We’ll keep scheduling them. We’ll keep fighting it out.”

On Friday, Menor had touchdown catches of 3 and 51 yards, his only two catches of the game, in addition to the long kickoff return for a score.

“It was a return (to the right) and I’d just seen everyone making their blocks,” Menor said. “I had to do my part and there was room, but shout out to everyone for doing their job on that. It was a great (confidence) boost, it built confidence everywhere.”Gaels quarterback Maika Eugenio, a Hawaii commit, completed 12 of 16 passes for 193 yards, with three touchdowns and an interception and added a 12-yard rushing TD in the fourth quarter.

Eugenio completed all six of his passes in the second half and his two touchdown passes in the third quarter proved to be the backbreaker. He hit New Mexico commit Massiah Mingo on a 39-yard score and found Menor for a 51-yard touchdown on the Gaels’ first two drives of the quarter to take a 28-10 lead.

“That first drive, it was there,” Menor said on a missed touchdown opportunity in the first half. “It was the same play. We just didn’t connect on it, but we knew we had to go back to it later in the game and we executed that play.”

Mingo finished with 104 receiving yards on six catches with the touchdown. Junior running back Noah Cole gave the Gaels a big boost on the ground, running for 148 yards on nine carries and ripping off runs of 28, 40 and 42 yards.

Gorman didn’t find its footing on offense on the game’s first drive, getting into East St. Louis territory and appearing to have an easy touchdown, but Eugenio overthrew Menor. The Gaels had to punt after Eugenio took a sack and a third-down pass was almost intercepted.

The Gaels’ defense came up with a stop near midfield. The offense took full advantage on the second drive, aided by a 46-yard run by Cole. On third-and-goal at the 3, Eugenio scrambled and found an open Menor in the back of the end zone for a touchdown to put the Gaels ahead 7-0 early in the second quarter.

East St. Louis (0-2) got on the board with less than four minutes before halftime on a 22-yard field goal, but Menor swung momentum back Gorman’s way as he took the kickoff at the 6, worked his way to his right, found an opening and hit the gap for a touchdown to put Gorman ahead 14-3 with 3:36 to play before intermission.

Gorman had a 51-yard field-goal attempt in the final seconds of the first half. The kick was blocked, and East St. Louis had a long recovery return. But the clock showed all zeros, and the Gaels went into the break up 14-3.

Arizona commit Prince Williams recorded three sacks for Gorman. Oregon commit Jett Washington had a sack in the fourth quarter on a fourth-and-goal with East St. Louis trailing 28-10. Gorman also blocked a punt and gained great field position on two other punts with bad snaps for the Flyers.

“It’s big to have a defense that can do that,” Browner said. “To hold a team like this to 10 points is almost ridiculous. They score a bunch of points and have three Division I running backs. To look at the talent they have and what we were able to do today, I’m real proud of the guys.”

Ahmad Coleman scored on a 3-yard touchdown run in the third quarter for East St. Louis, which helped cut the deficit to 21-10 before the Gaels scored on the second touchdown pass to Menor.

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.