×îÐÂÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´

TOWN AND COUNTRY — Daylen Austin-Harvey was mad. And somewhat embarrassed.

The CBC junior quarterback had the ball yanked from his belly midway through the third quarter of Friday's Metro Catholic Conference football game against rival SLUH.

Defensive back Quincy Jones rambled 98 yards for a score on the bizarre play to put the Junior Billikens up by 10 points.

"They took it right off me," said Austin-Harvey, who was fighting for the goal line. "I've got to do better."

Austin-Harvey did do better.

A lot better.

The 6-foot, 160-pounder bounced back to lead his team on three successive scoring drives to flip the script and give the Cadets a hard-fought 27-17 win.

CBC bounced back from a season-opening home loss to Kentucky power Louisville Trinity and avoided going 0-2 for the first time since 2002.

The Cadets continued their dominance of their Metro Catholic Conference rival by posting their 25th consecutive win over SLUH. The Jr. Bills' last victory in the series was a 26-7 triumph on Oct. 14, 2005.

This one was not as easy as it had been in the past.

CBC won the last two meetings by 41-0 and 37-0 scores.

The Jr. Bills (1-1 overall, 0-1 MCC) appeared set the break the string after the heads-up play by Jones.

But Austin-Harvey seemed miffed at the miscue and really buckled down the rest of the way.

"I knew we all had his back, we knew we were going to bounce back," said CBC senior wideout Arness Webb, who capped off the blitz by hauling in a 36-yard TD pass midway through the final quarter.

CBC reeled off the final 20 points of the game during a stretch of 10 minutes and 43 seconds to turn in a 10-point deficit into a 10-point win.

Austin-Harvey rebounded to guide his team on a seven-play, 69-yard drive that culminated with a 13-yard TD strike to junior wideout Kingston McPike. The score brought the Cadets to within 17-13 and gave them a much-needed shot of momentum.

Following a strong defensive stand, CBC rolled 58 yards the next time it touched the ball to take the lead for good. Austin-Harvey scored on an 11-yard run to put his team up 20-17 just six seconds into the final period.

"In that second half, we just toughened up," Austin-Harvey said. "I feel like we had to depend on each other, and we really wanted to fight as brothers."

The Austin-Harvey-to-Webb connection sealed the outcome with 5:13 remaining.

"Our execution was a little bit better," CBC veteran coach Scott Pingel said. "We started getting the ball into the hands of the guys we wanted to to make some plays."

SLUH played an aggressive keep-away game in the first half, holding the ball for long stretches of time. The Cadets  (1-1, 1-0) managed only one play from scrimmage in the second quarter.

Junior Billikens quarterback Pat Stein bowled over from 5 yards out to tie the game midway through the second quarter.

Austin-Harvey struck first blood with a nifty 50-yard TD scramble on the Cadets first possession of the game.

SLUH seemed in position to record its first win over CBC in more than two decades after the theft and score by Jones.

But the Cadets buckled down during the crunch time.

"This is CBC football, it's four quarters," Webb said. "We don't stop after two quarters."

SLUH was coming off a one-sided win over Hazelwood Central in its opener and had the momentum to end the CBC jinx.

"We just didn't get it done when we had to," SLUH coach Adam Cruz said. "But there was a lot to like. We know we've got a really good team. As I told the guys, 'Listen, it's a Week 2 game.' Even if we'd have won it's still a Week 2 game.

"We just have to make sure we continue to trend upward."