John Devir can now add game-winning field goal to his list of athletic accomplishments.
MONTVALE – Game winning goals in lacrosse, sure. Game winning field goals? That was a new experience for John Devir.
The self-taught Don Bosco kicker, who didn’t play football until his freshman year, delivered a 24-yard field goal in the rain in overtime to lift the No. 1 in New Jersey Ironmen to a hard-fought, dare I say ugly, victory over St. Joseph 17-14 Oct. 11.
Devir has pledged to go to Yale for lacrosse, but after a performance like this, he just might reach out to the Bulldogs football coach.
“I think I would like to kick there as well,” said the Ridgewood native, part of an extremely successful athletic family. “Maybe I will talk to the coach there.”
The game was another kick below the belt for the Green Knights. They outgained Don Bosco unofficially 382-121 in total yards. They missed a short field at the end of the first half which would have given them a 17-14 lead, had a bad snap on a field goal try at the end of regulation, and missed another kick with the first possession of overtime.
“We made it real hard on ourselves today, a lot of missed opportunities,” said Green Knights coach Augie Hoffmann. “Our defense played great. We had some missed opportunities in the kicking game which is unacceptable and that’s on me. I handle the specials. We just have to figure it out.”
What New Jersey has figured out in 2025 is that the Ironmen keep finding ways to win.
They rallied from 10-0 down in Texas to beat Melissa (that Melissa team hasn’t lost since and has outscored opponents 236-55, by the way), ran out the last six minutes of the clock in a 14-9 win over Bergen Catholic, blew past DePaul and now gutted out a win over the Green Knights.
“We knew they were coming off a tough loss, and they had two weeks to prepare for us,” said Don Bosco coach Dan Sabella. “We had to come out ready to play. It was a physical football game. It was like the SEC, you have to bring it every week, especially on the road like this.”
Devir was a soccer player growing up, and joined the Ironmen freshman football team to kick. He impressed the coaches with his powerful leg and he was used on kickoff duty right away.
Let’s be clear he’s a standout as a midfielder for the Ironmen’s lacrosse team, but he was ready for his moment wearing a football helmet when it was time. Michael Perillo fired back the snap. Tyler O’Daniels had the hold.
“Honestly, just calm down,” Devir said when asked what he was thinking. “It’s a chip shot, you have done this a million times, take out the noise, just focus on yourself and go on the snap and get it through the uprights.”
It was actually Devir’s second shot at a game winning kick, the first came after a wild sequence of events at the end of regulation.
The Green Knights lined up for a field goal with 10 seconds left, but the snap went past the holder to near midfield. A Green Knights player then picked up the ball and flung it. Don Bosco picked the ball up and ran it back for a touchdown (think Michigan/Michigan State in 2015), but it did not count because the attempted pass went forward. The refs called St. Joe’s for intentional grounding from spot of the pass.
That let Devir line up a 54-yard field goal with two seconds left, but he left it short by a few yards.
“Honestly, I could get that,” Devir said. “I get those in practice all the time, I think I just left a little early on the snap and I kind of got under it and it floated up and was short.”
Entering the game, the big question was the injuries to Green Knights stars Lamar Best and Nate Bailey, neither had played since Sept. 19. Best did take a handful of snaps at quarterback, but did not throw a pass. Bailey, probably 80 percent, was a factor catching six passes for 58 yards. Green Knights back-up QB Mason Geis threw for 268 yards.
Don Bosco only had one serious offensive drive the whole game. Their other TD came on a 91-yard kickoff return by Isaiah Alvarez.
“It was one of those games where we never really got into a flow offensively, we probably only had the one drive,” said Sabella. “We just never got into that comfort zone.”
Devir put the Ironmen in the victory zone anyway. Now he knows what a game-winning goal and field goal feels like.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Devir, Don Bosco give St. Joseph the boot | Cooper
Category: General Sports
