Bishop Diego football struggled to keep up with St. Francis in a 42-7 non-league loss on Friday night at La Playa Stadium.
The two sides were knotted at 7-7 early in the second quarter, but the Golden Knights quickly took control and ran away with the road victory over the shorthanded Cardinals (2-2), who have now dropped two straight as they continue to deal with key injuries throughout the roster.
“We’re not playing nearly at the level that we should be playing,” Bishop Diego head coach Tom Crawford said. “Things kind of compound, and we’re struggling to have any consistency on both sides of the ball right now. I really thought that we would play very well tonight, even though we’re shorthanded.
“I thought that we had a good week, for the most part, of practice, and I actually thought that we would compete pretty well… This is one of those nights where you kind of wash it away, and then hope you can reset to the following week.”
The Cardinals remain without standout two-way starters junior Samuel Boeddeker, senior Remi Boykin and senior JJ Mercier, among other standouts.
After Bishop Diego was forced to punt on the opening possession, the Golden Knights marched right down the field and opened the scoring on a 4-yard rush by sophomore Teranus Synncere Pitts II to go up 7-0 with 2:46 left in the first.
That score held through the end of the first quarter, but the Cardinals found themselves with a 1st and 10 from the St. Francis 32-yard line to begin the second.
The Cardinals handed the ball off to senior Connor Boyd on that first down and he found the corner, scampering into the red zone before reversing field and finding another crease on his way to a 32-yard rushing touchdown to even the score at 7-7.
Boyd led the Bishop Diego rushing attack by taking 12 carries for 66 yards and a score.
“[Boyd] is one of our faster players. We had anticipated that he’d be primarily a secondary player for us this year, but with a couple of guys out, he embraced getting some carries,” Crawford said.
“With the speed, for him, it’s just a matter of getting comfortable in terms of aiming points and reads and stuff like that. So he’s still young in the game with respect to that.”
The Golden Knights wasted no time answering back, as senior Mason Maddox ripped off a 67-yard rushing touchdown from the wildcat formation on the second play of the next drive to jump back in front 14-7 with 10:48 left in the half.
After another Bishop Diego punt, Maddox, a receiver by nature, struck again from the backfield with a 17-yard rushing score to extend the lead to 21-7, which held into halftime.
“In the two games we had, we hadn’t seen [St. Francis] run wildcat, and [Maddox’s] speed was pretty impressive. That kid was very, very quick, and once he got outside, we were not in a position to track him down,” Crawford said.
“It really didn’t matter what they were doing (on offense). We just were struggling pretty much the entire night to stop things.”
St. Francis let the Cardinals grab any momentum out of the break, as junior Delano Rock took the opening kickoff all the way back to the end zone for a touchdown and a 28-7 lead just 13 seconds into the half.
Maddox then made his impact felt on the defensive end for the Golden Knights, coming up with a fourth-down interception in the end zone to take possession back.
On the very next play, St. Francis sophomore quarterback Vito Schiada found a wide-open Rock behind the defense for a 56-yard touchdown to extend the lead to 35-7 with 5:04 left in the third.
“I think coming out of halftime and giving up that kickoff return took whatever air we had left and kind of took it away,” Crawford said. “When there’s no flow on either side of the ball, you’re going to have nights like this.”
The Cardinals answered with their longest possession of the night, a 14-play drive that got inside the St. Francis 20-yard line. However, the Golden Knight defense then forced a fumble and recovered it with seven minutes left in the game to keep Bishop Diego out of the end zone.
St. Francis continued to pour it on, getting down the field in a hurry and adding to its lead with an 8-yard touchdown pass from senior Ashton Hill to senior Will O’Connor to make it 42-7.
Bishop Diego will look to shake off this loss with another home game next week. The Cardinals will host Bishop Alemany back at La Playa Stadium next Friday at 7 p.m.
