Ryan Willis leads Miege to victory over rival Aquinas

Bishop Miege’s quarterback Ryan Willis does not show his emotion often, so when he went trotting into the end zone in the fourth quarter against St. Thomas Aquinas, you knew it was something special.

Not only did he lead the Stags to a 37-20 rivalry game victory, but it turns out his ties run much deeper than the league or even the Catholic archdiocese. Those ties made the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty worth the pain.

“Both my sisters went to Aquinas and played basketball here, and I just felt more at home at Miege,” Willis said. “I did what was best for me.”

So far, his decision has played out well.

In his first three years at Miege, the Stags have two district championships, a league co-championship and a Kansas Class 5A state runner-up finish. With the victory, they improved to 4-0 to start his senior season.

Willis, who has committed to Kansas, has been a big part of that success. Against Aquinas he completed 22 of his 35 passes for 282 yards and three touchdowns. He also rushed for 56 yards and one touchdown.

“He is a big-time quarterback and he is going to KU for a reason, which I think he showed tonight,” Miege coach Jon Holmes said. “He did a good job leading and we told him today that he was going to have to run it a little bit and he was able to move the chains for us.”

Miege’s offense got off to a slow start with a three-and-out on the first drive, but the defense forced a fumble to get the ball right back. Sean Galey put the Stags on the board with a 38-yard field goal.

Running back Dawson Downing added a four-yard rushing touchdown on the next drive and the defense came up with a turnover on downs to set the Stags up at the Saints’ 28-yard line. From there, Willis ran the ball three times and completed a pass to Danny Murphy to set up a 17-yard touchdown pass to Downing.

“I just didn’t call a very good game,” Saints coach Randy Dreiling said. “I went for it on fourth down and shouldn’t have and gave them that touchdown.”

Determined not to go into halftime scoreless, Karter Odermann completed a four-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Raunig to cut the lead to 16-6 before the break.

The Saints carried that momentum back out of the locker room and disrupted Willis with a pair of sacks from Zach Kelly for a loss of six yards and an interception by Ethan Meyers, but he bounced back quickly.

He connected with Downing for a 51-yard touchdown pass and hit Murphy for a 44-yard touchdown pass to keep the Stags in the lead.

“Our limits our boundless, and I really believe we can go undefeated,” Willis said. “The only thing stopping us is us.”

This story was originally published September 26, 2014 at 11:02 PM with the headline "Ryan Willis leads Miege to victory over rival Aquinas."