WILKINSBURG, Pa. — While the Penn State commit Dayshaun Burnett may be the “star” of the Imani Christian Academy Saints team this season, the team has a whole bunch of “dudes.” One of them is junior David Davis who went off for two touchdowns, two big kick returns and multiple defensive plays for the Saints in Friday night’s victory over the Beaver Bobcats.
The junior led the charge in the Saints’ 42-28 victory over the Bobcats at UPMC Graham Field. Davis scored the game’s first touchdown on a 62-yard touchdown reception from Stephen Vandiver. Later in the game, Davis punched in a 5-yard touchdown run. Additionally, Davis converted a two-point conversion attempt and added special team returns of 86 yards and 40-plus yards.
With multiple Division I-caliber players in the Saints’ starting lineup, the key to their success is building off of one another’s performance and energy.
“Man, we just feed off of each others energy,” Davis told Pittsburgh Sports Now after the game. “We dominated and just kept each other up for real, that is all we could do. We only got a certain amount of guys, it’s only like 25 of us max, so the best we could do is keep each other pushing and keep each others energy up.”
While the scoreboard showed a slightly lopsided game, the Saints allowed the Bobcats to stay in it due to poor ball control in the second half. The Saints lost multiple second half fumbles, albeit the game ran into weather issues. In addition to the rain and turnovers, Davis and the Saints dealt with injuries, especially cramping issues. While none of the injuries were serious, Davis would like to get to back to playing injury free football.
“Just staying healthy,” Davis said. “I got a cramp [during the game.] I got to get my health back together.”
The Saints are off to their best start since the 2018 season when they started 5-1. The thing is, the Saints never started this good in their current classification, Class-3A.
Following the game, Imani’s head coach LaRoi Johnson emphasized that every win that they get moving forward is a win for the history book.
For Davis and the rest of the squad, they are just going to keep working. In order for this team to finish where they want to finish, they will need to carry the same mindset into each game and keep dominating each matchup.
“Just working,” Davis said about moving forward. “Just keeping the same mindset every week, just going into every week with the same goals and dominating, just playing as a team and playing together.”
Davis, a junior, has already amassed offers from many high-caliber Division I schools including Pitt, Penn State, West Virginia, Michigan State, Nebraska, Duke and Kentucky among others. While he is not letting the national attention get to his head, Davis is beginning to form closer bonds with some of the coaches and programs.
One of the connections that is sticking out to Davis right now is Michigan State, and in specific, his connection with defensive assistant coach, Chris Gordon. But, as Davis said, that is not the only connection that is sticking out to him as he has a good relationship with coaches from all of the schools that are interested in him.
“I got a good connection with Coach Gordon from Michigan State.” Davis said. “I got a good bone with a lot of coaches right now.”
With the season underway, there is not much time to focus on recruiting and in Davis’ situation, he has a whole other year to improve his stock but that is not stopping him from getting out there and further developing his relationship with college programs. Davis stated that next weekend, he is planning to the University of Pittsburgh to attend its game against West Virginia on Sept. 14.
Regardless, Davis is helping the Saints get off to their best start in years and after defeating one of Class-3A’s best programs, the Saints are looking geared for a run at a WPIAL title. Nonetheless, Davis, Burnett, Vandiver and the rest of the Saints’ players will need to continue their strong play in order for them to reach their end goal.
