Gonzaga Holds Off Good Counsel, Advances To WCAC Championship

Gonzaga Holds Off Good Counsel, Advances To WCAC Championship

Gonzaga defeats Good Counsel 24-17 to advance to WCAC Championship.

Nov 10, 2017 by Kolby Paxton
Gonzaga vs. Good Counsel

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The temperature dipped below freezing shortly before kickoff and Gonzaga, playing on the road with a freshman quarterback and a spot in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference Championship on the line, would be without the services of do-it-all running back Jason Labbe.

But if the Eagles were supposed to be thrown off by the growing list of reasons they shouldn’t win on Friday night, they didn’t get the memo. Gonzaga went on a 21-3 run and held on for a 24-17 victory over Good Counsel in the WACA semifinals.

That freshman quarterback, Caleb Williams, led Gonzaga on an impressive drive to begin the game — a march that resulted in a 29-yard field goal and an early 3-0 lead for the visitors.

The hosts would answer.

Good Counsel’s Latrele Palmer carried it on all but two plays of the ensuing possession, hammering the Gonzaga front seven en route to an eventual two-yard touchdown plunge to put the Falcons up 7-3.

On the next series, with the first quarter of play already behind them, Gonzaga responded — first with a 25-yard Loic Sangwa run on fourth down deep in Good Counsel territory, next with a Williams six-yard touchdown run to put the Eagles up 10-7.

The onus was on Good Counsel to answer and quarterback Kam Snell nearly did just that. But with 19 seconds to play until halftime, Snell misfired on a fourth-down pass to Jonathan Donnelly, ending a nine-minute drive with nothing added to the scoreboard.

Good Counsel started the second-half scoring with a 25-yard field goal to knot things up at 10 apiece. But Gonzaga was hunting touchdowns. On the ensuing drive, Williams hit Maguire DiLenge with a 65-yard pitch and catch to push the Eagles’ lead to 17-10.

Finally, with just under eight minutes to go, Lucas Warfield got loose for an 18-yard touchdown run to ice the semifinal victory.

Gonzaga will await the winner of St. John’s and DeMatha — a game that can be seen LIVE on FloFootball at 1 PM (EST) on Saturday.