Wildcats Rally to Beat Pirates

On Friday night, the Wildcats had to mount a significant comeback to overcome a Waterloo Pirates team that started the game on fire. Waterloo marched down the field on their opening drive and took a 6-0 lead. The rest of the half continued to be dominated by Waterloo as they took an 18-0 lead into halftime, running up nearly 320 yards of offense in the process.
The second half was a much different story, however. The Wildcats got their first score on an 11-yard interception returned for a touchdown by Ty Fahey. Early in the 4th quarter, Belleville quarterback JJ Wenger plunged in from 1 yard out and the comeback was on. After a couple stops and punts from both teams, Waterloo had Belleville to a 4th and 17 to go with a little more than a minute left in the game, which is when Wenger found Sean McDermott along the sideline with a bomb that brought the Wildcats to the 1-yard line, down 4 with under a minute to go. Sawyer Fahey went into the end zone untouched on the next play, and Belleville had their first lead of the night with less than 40 seconds remaining. Fahey added a 2-point conversion and the score was 22-18. A few incomplete passes from Waterloo and that was the final. Belleville had completed an impressive comeback to start the conference season 1-0, and push their winning streak to four games.
Wenger finished the game 6-11, passing for 126 yards and rushed for a touchdown. Fahey had 24 carries for 129 yards and a score, and Alex Grignano added 61 yards on 7 carries.
The Wildcats (4-1) will continue conference play this Friday night as they welcome the Marshall Cardinals (0-5). Kickoff is set for 7:00 p.m.