ShawneeDispatch.com

Jim Getto has been St. James Academy’s starting varsity quarterback for two years, and Friday night against Harmon he turned in arguably the best performance of his career.

Getto completed 13 of 16 passes for 267 yards and three touchdowns while throwing no interceptions. It was a nearly flawless performance for the junior, and he led his team to a 42-0 victory over Harmon at David Jaynes Stadium.

The Thunder scored 35 points in the first half — 28 of them in the second quarter on three long touchdown passes by Getto — and the signal-caller completed 11 of 12 throws in the second period.

“Jim made a couple decent reads and we got some guys deep,” St. James coach John Muehlberger said. “I hope it carries over for him.”

Getto opened the scoring afoot with a 5-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. Christian Mata’s extra point made it 7-0.

The second quarter was when the Thunder began to roll, however. Early in the quarter Getto connected with Mata for a 56-yard scoring strike that extended the lead to 14-0. Minutes later Ben Reynoldson punched the ball in with a 4-yard run that made it 21-0.

After that it was back to the air as Getto hooked up with Reynoldson on back-to-back touchdown passes — the first was a 54-yard score and the second was a 38-yard connection.

“Ben Reynoldson had three touchdowns (in the quarter) and he went for 154 yards in the first half,” Muehlberger said. “We caught him deep twice on some long balls.”

Christian Moffitt intercepted a pass and returned it 11 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter, and that closed out the scoring.

St. James spent the rest of the game focusing on its running game, but the Thunder had minimal success in that area to Muehlberger’s chagrin.

“We’ve worked all week pretty hard on trying to get the kids to run the ball and get our line together, so that was probably the most frustrating thing for me was that we had a tough time moving the ball on the ground,” he said.

Averill Morrisette led the Thunder in rushing with 65 yards on eight carries, and Ryan Ferguson went for 40 yards on five attempts. In all, seven different St. James players carried the ball 33 times for just 176 yards.

Reynoldson did all of his damage as a receiver in the first half as he caught four passes for a team-high 154 yards. Mata had a pair of catches for 94 yards, Moffitt had three catches for 52 yards and Daniel Kindel had one grab for 23 yards.

Defensively, Bret Alex and B.J. Longston each recovered a fumble. The Thunder held Harmon to 112 yards of total offense. John Zeno led the Hawks with 61 yards rushing on six carries.

The Thunder improved to 3-2 with the victory and have matched last season’s wins total. They next play at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, against Tonganoxie at David Jaynes Stadium in Bonner Springs. With a 4-1 record, Tonganoxie will be a formidable foe, Muehlberger said.

“I certainly think it’s a huge game for us,” he said. “We need to go back to fundamentals. We need to run the ball. It’s been a huge emphasis the last couple weeks for me, and we haven’t gotten to where I’d like us to be. We need to run the ball, and defensively we need to say away from big plays. Tonganoxie has a lot of kids from a smaller town, and they’re tough kids. When I was at (Bishop) Ward I coached against them and I understand their town and how they get behind their team, and they’re going to come after you and fight and claw for four quarters. It’ll be a great challenge for us and it’ll be another measuring stick for where we’re at, but we need to get better at the basics.”