"I didn't even get to stretch," Litton said.
Litton's first play was a 59-yard touchdown run by his teammate, Eli Pogue. The Wildcats made the two-point conversion to take an 8-7 lead.
The rest of the game was all St. Joseph. The Wildcats surged to a 34-7 victory, which means they outscored the No. 1 team in South Jersey by 34-0 while Litton was in the game.
"It was a great victory," Litton said. "We played our hardest. We played every snap, every down, as hard as we could. Our coaches always say to play every play like it's our last, and we did that today."
Litton was smack-dab in the middle of the Wildcats' success. As the left guard, he was part of an offensive line that seemed to wear down Holy Spirit's bigger defensive front, resulting in three scoring drives in the second half.
As an inside linebacker, he was part of an active defense that shut down Holy Spirit's heralded rushing attack and limited the Spartans to just 85 yards in the first three quarters.
Litton is a typical St. Joseph lineman. He's not that tall, but he has spent a lot of his high school career in the weight room in that old fieldhouse behind the little school.
Like so many St Joseph players, his strength is mental as well as physical, a steely approach forged by all those sessions in that weight room, all those offseason workouts. He's one of those guys - and the Wildcats have featured dozens of them through the years - who dedicates himself to the demanding program and gets bigger, stronger, and better every season.
That's why he was losing his mind when he was stuck in that classroom, trying to finish his SAT while the clock was ticking away and the biggest game of his senior season was inching toward kickoff.
"I was thinking, 'Aw, man, I'm going to be late,' " Litton said.
Litton swears he obeyed all speed limits driving to the game. He was honking at some people in Hammonton, though.
"I think they recognized me because they moved out of the way," Litton said.
There was a spot saved for him in the tiny parking lot. He said that when he exited his car, he saw the scoreboard and noticed that the Wildcats were behind by 7-0.
But he knew he wasn't too late.
"Our saying is, 'Forty-eight minutes, a lifetime of memories,' " Litton said.
Or 40, if a guy is eight minutes late.
Contact staff writer Phil Anastasia at 856-779-3223, panastasia@phillynews.com, or @PhilAnastasia on Twitter. Read his blog, "Jersey Side Sports," at www.philly.com/jersseysidesports
