Santa Barbara High football raced out to a 28-0 lead in the first quarter and never looked back en route to a 44-7 win over crosstown rival Dos Pueblos on Friday at Scott O’Leary Stadium in Goleta.
The Dons (2-1) dominated all facets of the game in the opening half, while the Chargers (1-2) struggled to move the ball or slow down the high-flying Santa Barbara offense.
“I’m really excited with what we keep seeing with our youth and the seniors are hungry,” Santa Barbara High head coach Nate Mendoza said. “This has been the story I keep saying, we’re young with a hungry senior class. Now we gear up and get ready for a big one against Moorpark.”
“Non-league (play) is for this. We want to play teams like this,” Dos Pueblos head coach AJ Pateras said. “Those guys give us a good test of Agoura, San Marcos… or even the playoffs, which is where we want to be.”
The Dons marched right down the field after receiving the opening, needing just six plays to find the endzone as Monty Lopez rushed it in from 7 yards out for a 7-0 lead at the 8:43 mark.
On the ensuing possession, DP had an option play go wrong as a pitch turned into a fumble, which was scooped up to give SB the ball at the DP 6-yard line.
The Dons wasted no time turning that into points as Lopez plunged in for the score on the very next play to make it 14-0.
The SB defense continued its scorching start on the next drive as Reid Miller stepped in front of a pass for the interception. He then made a few Chargers miss and took it back 20 yards for a pick-six and a 21-0 lead halfway through the first.
After a DP punt, the Lopez show continued for the Dons on offense. Facing a third down, Griffin Arnold dumped off a screen pass and Lopez did the rest, scampering 44 yards down the field for his third score of the quarter to extend the lead to 28-0.
With running backs Aaron Baizan and Zane Webb sidelined with injuries, Lopez filled in with 54 rushing yards, 48 receiving yards and a trio of touchdowns in the win.
“Monty was excited when we let him know on Sunday that we were going to put him back there,” Mendoza said. “He’s a game breaker… I’m proud of Monty and we just want it to continue. If we can rely on three backs, that’d be great.
“We’ll see what’s going on with Baizan and Webb, and it’s really good for us to build a little more depth in that position.”
The dominance continued into the second quarter as DP was forced to punt and the Dons rattled off a nine-play scoring drive with an exclamation point at the end.
The drive was capped off by a 37-yard rushing touchdown by Cade Mault, who took the end around and left every Charger defender in the dust to make it 34-0 with 6:19 left in the half.
The sophomore pairing of Mault and Nate Meister was all over the field in the win for the Dons. Meister hauled in five catches for 58 yards and added 21 yards on the ground, while Mault totaled 57 yards and the score.
Meanwhile, Arnold, a fellow sophomore, completed 12-of-19 passes for 206 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
“It’s great to see those guys make explosive plays and they’re hungry and young, and have room to grow,” Mendoza said of his sophomores. “It’s exciting to see [Griffin Arnold] make good decisions out there.”
SB picked up its third turnover of the half on the next drive as a gang tackle forced a fumble and Joseph Barrios emerged from the pile with the ball.
“Defense played outstanding,” Mendoza said. “We had one bad play where we didn’t tackle and the guy has got really good speed. Defense was just lights out.”
That set up a 22-yard field goal by Mault, which rounded out the first-half scoring and gave his team a 37-0 advantage.
“I think the first half was an adversity half,” Pateras said. “The guys struggled at learning how to figure out what to do, even though today, we really talked about leaning on the guys that you trust and that you believe in.
“So at halftime, there were no X’s and O’s adjustments. There is no adjustment. You come out and you play hard and you do it for your teammate, you do it for yourself, you do it for what we do.”
After the Chargers were forced to punt on the first drive out of the halftime locker rooms, the Dons got right back to work. On the second play of the drive, Arnold found a wide-open Finley Congdon down the sideline, who took the pass and raced 57 yards down the field for the score and the 44-0 lead.
DP bounced back with its only score of the night on the ensuing drive as quarterback Grady Felix connected with Micah Barnhart, who made one defender miss and took off down the sideline for a 67-yard touchdown to cut the deficit to 44-7 with 5:18 left in the third.
“[It was] a great second half,” Pateras said. “We competed and we made some plays. We made some mistakes, but we were much more competitive. We moved the ball, we got some stops.
The Chargers then went for the onside kick and recovered, but couldn’t turn it into any points on the other end.
In fact, there were no points scored for the rest of the game. With a running clock for the majority of the fourth quarter, the Dons held onto the 44-7 lead until the final whistle sounded.
“I think there are a lot of positives from tonight. We competed in the second half, and again, we’re great in the second half a lot of times,” Pateras said. “We just have to continue to get these guys to play earlier and just believe in themselves a little earlier before they realize they can play.”
Santa Barbara High will be on the road against Moorpark next week, while Dos Pueblos will host Del Sol.
