By Dylan Butler
When he gets into the open field, Dean Marlowe is poetry in motion. While Barrington Wallace is Holy Cross’ bruising running back, Marlowe, the James Madison-bound quarterback and defensive back, elegantly and effortlessly glides upfield.
“It’s fun watching him run,” Holy Cross Coach Tom Pugh said. “He looks like a college player on a high-school level.”
Marlowe rushed for 142 yards and two touchdowns and threw for a third score to lead Holy Cross to a 28-7 win against Monsignor Farrell at the Lions Den on Staten Island Oct. 10.
“He’s a tremendous athlete,” said Wallace, a senior who rushed for 97 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries after missing two games with a concussion. “He’s lightning and I’m thunder.”
Marlowe put the game away with a remarkable run on 3rd-and-2 from the Holy Cross 29. Marlowe burst down the sideline and cut back up field at the Farrell 30, avoiding defensive back James Leavy for a 71-yard score that gave Holy Cross a 28-0 lead with 3:39 left in the third quarter.
“It was originally supposed to be in the middle, but it was clogged so I broke it outside,” Marlowe said. “I thought I was actually going to get caught, but I made a nice cut up the field and scored.”
Holy Cross (4-1, 3-1 CHSFL ‘AAA’) scored on its first possession on a Devante Bryant 12-yard touchdown run. The Knights capitalized on a botched punt and Marlowe dived over the top for a one-yard TD to take a 14-0 lead with 4:29 left in the first quarter.
Holy Cross again made the most of short field position after Farrell was hit with a personal foul on a punt, giving the Knights the ball at the Farrell 23-yard line. After Marlowe hit Adrian Paljevic with an 18-yard completion, Wallace ran the ball in for a five-yard score to give the Knights, a legitimate contender for the CHSFL Class AAA title, a 21-0 halftime lead.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” Pugh said of Wallace. “If you get a back running on his level and you’ve got the quarterback and the wideouts, you have three options. You’re in good shape.”
Monsignor Farrell (3-2, 2-2) got on the scoreboard with 1:35 left in the third quarter when quarterback Jake Barbaccia hit Michael Viegas for a five-yard touchdown. The Lions threatened to score again in the fourth quarter, but Barbaccia threw four straight incompletions from the Holy Cross nine-yard line.
“We definitely think we can compete with St. Joe’s and St. Anthony’s,” Marlowe said. “We just have to continue to work hard in practice.”
Reach Dylan Butler at dbutler@nypost.com.
