In the last 63 years of the Big Game between Santa Barbara High and San Marcos football, there had never been a tie. That changed on Friday night at Warkentin Stadium.
With the Dons missing quarterback Laird Finkel and the Royals playing inspired football on both sides of the ball, the two crosstown rivals ended in a 20-20 tie in the 64th Big Game matchup.
The game ended in a tie after the game was knotted up as the clock hit zero and the referees met with both San Marcos coach Ralph Molina and Santa Barbara coach Nate Mendoza to discuss whether or not the game would be continued.
In a conversation that normally occurs before the game begins, Molina voted for the game to end in a tie while Mendoza wanted the two teams to play out overtime. A disagreement between coaches results in a tie, per CIF-SS guidelines.
“I didn’t want to lose this game, our guys worked their butts off and I’ll take this,” Molina said of his decision. “I’m a competitor and I want to go at it, but at the same time I know what our goal is. If we lost this, all that hard work… we would’ve been disappointed.
“We feel pretty good, I know they’re upset but they’re upset because we outplayed them.”
While Mendoza urged Molina to change his decision and end the game in overtime, he believes his team should have earned the win in regulation.
“It’s not how we want to finish a game but the message was clear to the kids that we should’ve never been in that position in the first place,” Mendoza said. “The coaches have to agree on it, that’s the rule and we can’t do anything about the rules.
“[Molina] is okay with a tie, that’s not okay with me but I can’t do anything about his decisions he has to make.”
With the tie, the Big Game series now sits at 39-24-1. Before Friday night, the Dons had won eight games in a row against San Marcos.
“Hats off to them, San Marcos played outstanding tonight,” Mendoza said. “Phenomenal effort, great rival game and a great example of why you never overlook any opponents.
“I’m very proud of our boys, they fought. Many times in the game they maybe would have not kept fighting but that shows the kind of fight we have in the locker room.”
The underdog Royals leaned on their defense throughout the game while senior quarterback Danny Diaz made several impressive passes and runs on broken plays.
He completed 4-of-9 passes for 113 yards and two touchdowns while adding 13 yards on the ground.
Diaz earned the Gary Blades Memorial Big Game Most Valuable Player Award for his play.
Santa Barbara High got on the board first after a fumbled snap by the Royals set the Dons’ offense up with great field position.
They took advantage of that field position, as Finkel dropped back and lofted a perfect pass to Carter Debusk in the back of the endzone, who got one foot down for the touchdown.
The extra-point attempt was blocked by San Marcos’ Roman Gislimberti, keeping the Dons lead at 6-0 with 4:41 left in the first.
On the ensuing kickoff, Remi Boykin sent a spark through the Royals’ sideline and crowd with a strong return near midfield.
A few plays later, San Marcos faced a 3rd-and-8 from the Santa Barbara 40-yard line. Diaz dropped back to pass and scrambled out of the pocket after feeling pressure.
He then launched the ball to Charlie Angeles, who came down with the 36-yard completion to get into strong scoring position.
On the very next play, Nate Jones bulldozed his way in for a 4-yard rushing touchdown. A successful extra-point attempt put San Marcos up 7-6 with 2:15 to go in the opening quarter.
Both defenses then stepped up, including a fourth-down stop by the Royals to turn the ball over on downs on the first possession of the second quarter.
On that possession, Finkel came off the field with a left shoulder injury. He did not return to the game after the 10:54 mark in the second quarter, forcing wide receiver Kai Mault into the quarterback position.
Filling in for Finkel, Mault completed 7-of-16 passes for 80 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He also ran for 66 yards on several designed quarterback runs.
“I can’t say enough about Kai’s effort, just unreal effort, he continues to do amazing things and though he’s had really amazing games this year tonight was the most impressive,” Mendoza said. “He never got flustered doing something that he hasn’t done.”
Mault marched the Dons into San Marcos territory on his first drive under center, but a missed field goal kept the San Marcos lead at one point.
The defenses continued to shine in the second quarter, capped off by a last-second interception by San Marcos’ Jacob Murillo to keep the Royals’ lead at 7-6 heading into halftime.
San Marcos fed off a fired-up home crowd on the first drive of the second half, marching down the field thanks to 35 yards of Dons penalties to get to the Santa Barbara High 17-yard line.
On 2nd-and-11, Diaz took the snap and was immediately swarmed by Dons’ defenders. However, the senior broke a pair of tackles and rolled out to the left to find Quinn Donnell down the field.
Donnell came down with the ball, bounced off a would-be tackler and dove into the endzone for a 17-yard touchdown. The extra-point attempt was no good on a bad snap, leaving the San Marcos lead at 13-6 midway through the third.
“(Diaz was) big time, he made the plays,” Molina said. “He’s grown up so much in a year, that was huge. He kept us in the game, if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be in this game.”
The Santa Barbara High offense came out of the gates strong as well, opting to go with a jumbo package on offense and calling eight straight run plays to get down the field.
It proved successful, as Zane Webb came away with rushes of 14 and 11 yards to set up a 2-yard rushing touchdown by Mault to knot the game up at 13-13 with 3:09 left in the third.
“It was just a great effort by Kai, we kind of put together a tiny playbook at halftime and said focus on those plays,” Mendoza said. “We ran the ball really well in the second half, we got into a real tight package and ran it well.”
The Royals wasted no time on the ensuing drive, as Diaz once again scrambled away from pressure and found a wide-open Nate Jones, who had slipped away from his defender.
Jones took the pass and sped his way down the sideline and into the endzone for a 53-yard touchdown and a 20-13 San Marcos lead. Jones accounted for 94 total yards of offense.
“What a great play to throw the touchdown pass to Jones, that’s what an athlete does,” Molina said of Diaz’s play.
The scoring run continued on the next drive as the Dons began to turn to Mault’s arm, as Mault and Debusk connected for two 12-yard competitions to get into Royals’ territory.
In a play similar to the touchdown in the first half, Mault dropped back and delivered a perfect ball to Debusk in the back of the endzone for a 21-yard score and a 20-20 tie with 8:56 on the clock.
Debusk was a monster in the receiving game for Santa Barbara High, hauling in six catches for 108 yards and two touchdowns.
“I’m proud of Carter, he makes big catches all the time,” Mendoza said. “Carter was outstanding with guys like Kai not playing receiver, Tomas (Gil) was hurt.
“We needed him to step up, Mason Morales was also out. No excuses, but it allowed him to make big plays because we needed him to.”
The next two drives ended in punts from both teams, giving the Royals possession of the ball near midfield with 2:30 left.
Molina opted to run the ball and get into scoring range, but the Dons’ defense stood strong. However, a Santa Barbara High personal foul on 3rd and 9 gave the Royals new life and the ball at the Dons’ 26-yard line with 30 seconds left.
After a few more unsuccessful run plays, San Marcos trotted out for a 44-yard field goal attempt with seven seconds on the clock.
The kick went up but sailed wide left and short to preserve the 20-20 tie with five seconds left on the clock.
The Dons went for a miracle play in the final seconds of regulation but they made it just five yards, setting up the postgame dramatics that ended in the game being called as a tie.
“I know what I need out of my program,” Molina said of the first-ever Big Game tie. “Right now we wanted something extremely positive going into league and that’s what we talked about all week.
“Nobody gave us a chance to win this game, but we did and we talked about it all week.”
The game marked the end of non-league play for both teams, and the Royals and Dons will each enjoy a bye week next Friday.
The following week, San Marcos (2-2-1) will host Fillmore on Friday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. Santa Barbara High (4-0-1) will welcome Newbury Park to Peabody Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m.