SCHEDULE
vs. Friendship Collegiate (August 25, 5:00 PM)
vs. Loyola Blakefield (September 1, 2:00 PM)
@ Wilson (September 8, 2:00 PM)
@ Calvert Hall (September 14, 7:00 PM)
@ Bishop McNamara (September 22, 2:00 PM)
vs. Carroll (September 29, 2:00 PM)
@ Bishop O’Connell (October 6, 2:30 PM)
@ DeMatha (October 13, 2:00 PM)
vs. Good Counsel (October 20, 2:00 PM)
vs. Gonzaga (November 3, 3:00 PM) @Blair High School
LAST YEAR’S RECORD
4-6, 3-3 in conference
KEY PLAYERS
QB: Wil Ulmer (Jr.) For a team with 14 of returning starters, they will have relative inexperience at quarterback. Ulmer played six games last season and started one, but that obscures what he showed. Against DeMatha, he came in on the Cadets last drive, and drove them 70 yards in 1:33, before throwing an interception on the final play. His only start was against Good Counsel, and St. John’s took a lead into halftime before ultimately losing the game 28-14. He’s a duel threat quarterback who runs a sterling 4.51 40-yard dash.
WR: Omar Truitt (Jr.) – Earning first team all-conference honors in any conference in America is nice. To do it in a conference as loaded with frontline talent as the WCAC is special. But to do it as a sophomore in the WCAC? That’s almost unheard of. That’s exactly what Truitt did, playing both wide receiver and cornerback for the Johnnies as a sophomore.
LB: Devin Williams (Jr.) – Last June, before Williams had even played a down for the Cadets (he spent his freshman year playing for St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes in the IAC), Williams felt comfortable enough to verbally commit to Stanford, just three months after his 15th birthday. He made himself and the Cardinal look smart in his sophomore campaign, by leading the team in tackling.
KEY GAMES
August 25th vs. Friendship Collegiate
In the first game of the season, the Cadets take on D.C. independent school Friendship Collegiate. They are known for sending players to college, and this year’s roster will take the field with four commitments to Maryland. This will be a good chance for the returning starters at St. John’s to show what they’ve learned from a season of hard knocks last year.
October 13th @ DeMatha
This game was the site where Ulmer announced himself to the St. John’s faithful, and he would love nothing more than to avenge that loss by beating the Stags this season. Also, for a team that finished 3-3 in the WCAC, their immediate sights would be on the Stags as well, since they finished 4-2 and in third in the conference.
September 1st vs. Loyola Blakefield
No one can accuse St. John’s head coach Joe Patterson of scheduling an easy non-conference schedule. One season after travelling to Akron to play LeBron James’ alma mater St. Vincent-St Mary’s, the Cadets are back at it again, scheduling Loyola Blakefield as the second game of the season.
GOALS FOR THE SEASON
“I think our goal is pretty much the goal of any other team, and that’s just to play to the best of our abilities. To execute, and give ourselves the best chance of winning every game.”
-Joe Patterson, St. John’s head coach
St. JOHN’S ON THE NEXT LEVEL
Devin Williams may be the only player to have committed from St. John’s class of 2014, but he will probably not be the last. According to rivals.com, five juniors on the Cadets are getting long looks from high-major programs. Running back Troy Robinson has already been offered by Syracuse, and is receiving interest from schools such as Miami, Michigan, Oregon and North Carolina. Receiver Omar Truitt is being courted by many of the same schools, along with a contingent of SEC schools, with Auburn, Alabama, Vanderbilt and Tennessee all weighing in as well. The quarterback Will Ulmer may have the least experience of all of them, but he appears to have already accumulated the most interest. National powerhouses like Ohio State, Oregon, South Carolina and Wisconsin are looking at the dual threat quarterback.
SPOTLIGHT
“We have three offensive linemen that are going into our third season of starting for us, and they’ve been relatively unheralded up to this point. Our success is going to be very contingent upon them. That’s Max Onyenwe, Ned Bent, and Alex Malchow.“
-Joe Patterson, St. John’s head coach
