The Porters Chapel Eagles might have lost on the scoreboard Friday night, but a moral victory was attained in their 14-0 loss to St. Andrew’s.

The game remained scoreless during the first half in a heavily defensive game, especially for the Eagles. PCA coach Blake Purvis said he was particularly proud of the strong defensive play he saw from his team.

PCA gave up 43 points and nearly 400 yards in two quarters in a jamboree game last week against St. Aloysius. This time, they didn’t give up a point until halfway through the third quarter and recovered three fumbles.

“We made a lot of improvements from last week to this week despite the lack of practice time because of the weather,” Purvis said. “We’re still a couple of weeks away from the conditioning we need to be in to finish the game. But the fight we exhibited the whole game, and we never gave up and we kept coming back and fighting through adversity, that’s what this team’s always done. It’s a process. It’s one day at a time.”

With damp and muddy conditions, there was a heavy running game with few passes completed and not very many even attempted by both teams. They combined for only 17 attempts.

“It was a lot of running game there in the first half. Both defenses were fresh and playing hard. It was a defensive battle and we created some turnovers and left a few opportunities on the field offensively that we’ve just got to capitalize on moving forward,” Purvis said.

Junior Josh Arias was proud of the team for holding the Saints scoreless in the first half. St. Andrew’s beat the Eagles 35-0 in last year’s season opener.

“Coach told us before the game they definitely weren’t going to be scared of us or intimidated,” Arias said. “They thought they were going to come in and it was going to be a walk in the park, but we came out and showed them in the first two, three drives that we meant business and they got frustrated. We took advantage of that, definitely.”

He said the atmosphere in the stadium pulled the team through and marked a turning point for them.

“The energy was phenomenal. Probably the best energy we’ve had in two or three years,” Arias said.

The Saints’ first score came from a 10-play drive that led to a 5-yard touchdown run by Warner Speed with just under 5 minutes left in the third quarter. After a bobbled snap on the extra point attempt, the Saints led 6-0.

The Saints’ next touchdown was a 25-yard run by Drew Friedrich with just over 10 minutes left in the game. The Saints overcame a fumble and an illegal procedure penalty to finish off a nine-play drive spanning the third and fourth quarters, and that gave them a 14-0 lead.

St. Andrew’s also had two long drives in the first half that did not produce any points. One was a 12-play drive that ended with a punt, and the second resulted in a blocked field goal on the last play of the half. The kick by Matt Harjes was too low and went into the mass of players on the line to bring the game to halftime.