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St. Joseph defeated Fairfield Prep, 48-33, in a non-conference match up between two of the state’s top-ranked football teams at the Dalling Sports Complex in Trumbull on Saturday.

Coach Joe Della Vecchia’s 8th-ranked Cadets took a 26-7 lead, before coach Tom Shea’s 2nd-ranked Jesuits made it a one-score game on the first play of the final quarter.

Leading 33-27, St. Joseph (2-0) countered with a 73-yard, 11-play drive that ended with Kevin Trefz throwing a 23-yard touchdown pass to Lars Pedersen on a 4th-and-11 play.

After holding Prep (1-1) on downs, the Cadets went up 47-27 when Trefz ran for an 8-yard score with 2:18 remaining.

Mufasha Abdul Basir, Pedersen and Seamus Keating scored two touchdown each for St. Joseph.

Abdul Basir scored on a 1-yard run to open the game and Pedersen returned a punt 54-yards for another score.

Trailing 12-0, Prep made it 12-7 midway through the second quarter on Joe Ganim’s 1-yard run and the first of three conversion kicks from Hank Healey.

Pedersen threw a 22-yard pass to Keating and then Trefz found Keating by the pylon for a 10-yard score. Marc Mrozek’s first of four PATs with 17 seconds remaining in the first half made it 26-7.

Prep received the second half kickoff and crisply marched 65 yards in seven plays, with Colton Smith keeping the ball for a 21-yard touchdown.

Nick Frankchuk recovered a fumble four plays into the next St. Joseph series, and nine plays later Allen Gibson ran nine yards for a touchdown and it was 26-21.

Abdul Basir ran for a 68-yard touchdown only two plays later.

Ganim scored on an 8-yard run on the first play of the fourth period. The two-point conversion pass fell incomplete, and St. Joseph led 33-27.