STOPPED SHORT—STA’s Brandon Robertson (20) is upended by St. Helena Central’s Bryant Burton at the Hawks’ 1-yard line late in the second quarter as Cameron LeBleu (54) and Josh Reed (5) of the Falcons look on during STA’s 41-34 victory Friday night in Strawberry Stadium. By Mike Kiral

Ramone Andrews missed a chance to pick up some yards on a run-pass option early in the second quarter Friday night.

Given a second chance a play later, Andrews made the most of it, sailing 82 yards to jump start St. Thomas Aquinas to a 41-34 win over St. Helena Central in their District 9-2A showdown at Strawberry Stadium.

Andrews accounted for 342 yards and five touchdowns as the Falcons (7-0, 3-0) stayed perfect in district play.

"He played outstanding," STA head coach John White said. "He made great reads and the few bad reads he made, he knew it was his bad reads and got on it. He's recognizing when he's making his reads wrong and moving on. That's outstanding."

Andrews ran for 145 yards and three touchdowns while completing 11 of his 22 passes for 198 yards and two scores. Ryan Gambel caught five of the passes for 150 yards and a touchdown. Josh Reed added 108 yards on 16 carries.

Addarius Sopsher tried to bring St. Helena (4-3, 1-1) back from a 41-18 deficit in the final three minutes, connecting with Nicholas Spain on touchdown passes of 35 and 9 yards. But Gambel dove on an onsides kick with 17.1 seconds left to preserve the win.

"We played hard," St. Helena head coach Dwayne Severio said. "One of the big things we did compared to last year to this year is our kids play hard for 48 minutes."

Sopsher overcame a slow start to complete 11 of his 26 passes for 225 yards and two touchdowns. He also scored on a 1-yard run. Darin Self ran 23 times for 151 yards and a touchdown, doing most of the damage in the first half. Ryan Byrd caught three passes for 121 yards, including a 75-yard touchdown while Spain had three catches for 65 yards.

The game did not start out like it was going to be an offensive showdown. Brandon Robertson intercepted Sopsher at the Hawks 37 on the first play from scrimmage and later one Byrd picked off Andrews at the St. Helena 1.

But in the second quarter, Andrews rolled right and threw incomplete. On the next play, Andrews again rolled right, but this time went down the sidelines, then cut across the field for the 82-yard score with 10:15 left in the half.

"Teams that play us make him throw the ball, and tonight they didn't," White said. "They tried to take away the pass and he had an option to run the first time and he didn't. The rule of thumb is if the end disappears, take the ball and run."

Brandon Loria capped an 11-play drive with a 1-yard run on fourth down on the ensuing drive, but Self answered for St. Helena with a 12-yard run up the middle for the score 55 seconds before halftime to make it 14-6 at the break.

Andrews kept on a bootleg around the left side from 27 yards out to extend the Falcons' lead to 20-6 with 5:23 left in the third quarter.

"Early on in the game we had some missed assignments on defense and they took advantage of it," Severio said. "Josh Reed is a good runner and Ramone, if you give him anything, he's going to take it. If you mess up, they are going to take advantage of it."

A 30-yard run by Self and a 32-yard pass from Sopsher to Byrd set up Sopsher's 1-yard sneak to make it 20-12 with 3:13 left in the quarter.

Andrews found Gambel in the right side of the end for a 17-yard score to make it 27-12 with 1:36 remaining in the quarter. St. Helena answered with its version of the Blue Grass Miracle as Sopsher's pass down the right sidelines was tipped by both Andrews and Russell Pellichino to Byrd for a 75-yard score. Andrews intercepted Sopsher's conversion pass to keep the Falcons up, 27-18.

Andrews spun in from a yard out after hitting Gambel on a 56-yard pass with 10:11 left in the game. He added a 7-yard toss to Blake Brooks in the middle of the end zone to make it 41-18 with 3:20 left.

Sopsher completed four straight passes on the next drive, the last a 35-yarder to Spain on the left sidelines. Billy Richardson made a sliding catch on the conversion to cut the deficit to 41-26 with 1:57 remaining.

After stopping the Falcons, the Hawks went 39 yards in five plays, the last a 9-yard pass from Sopsher to Spain over the middle. Sopsher then connected with Byrd on the conversion with 19.1 seconds left.

"That was a real good football team," White said. "We were fortunate to win tonight. We had a lot of breaks go our way. We played well offensively, and defensively, we did a good enough job to stop them."