Bishop Diego’s football team overcame three first-half fumbles and got through its first home game of the season with a 28-14 win over Etiwanda at La Playa Stadium on a humid Friday night.
Senior Gabe Villa and the defensive unit provided the spark for the Cardinals, who improve to 4-0 on the season.
Villa rushed for 105 yards on 18 carries and scored a touchdown, caught four passes for 79 yards and returned an interception 43 yards that set up the game’s first touchdown with 32 seconds left in the first half.
Ian Bartley’s hit forced the Etiwanda receiver to cough up the ball, Villa grabbed it and took off down the sideline. He was pulled down from behind at the 2-yard line. On the next play, Villa ran behind lineman Aiden Garcia to break a scoreless game. Diego Cortez kicked the first of his four PATS.
“My teammate was there to make a play and pop the ball up and I just happened to be in the right spot at the right time,” said Villa. “I picked it up and I ran it back; I got slowed down a little bit by the lineman who horse-collared me, but we ended up scoring on that, so it didn’t matter.”
Villa praised the play of Bartley.
“He had a hell of a game; he’s a dog, for sure. He’s been stepping it up lately. That play wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for him.”
With returning all-Marmonte League player Oscar Mauia sidelined, Villa has taken on the role of Bishop’s featured running back. He has mixed feelings about it.
“It’s definitely nice (but) it’s a little hard because I don’t have my duo and it kind of messes with other dynamics, because Oscar plays like a lot of special teams and things like that. He plays a big part of our team, so not having him out there is a little rough. But we all did our jobs and we all made up for it.”
The Bishop defense did a tremendous job keeping Etiwanda off the scoreboard after the three first-half turnovers. John Michael Flint broke up a pass play on third down after the first turnover, linebacker Samuel Boeddeker sacked quarterback Keegan Campuzano on third down after the second fumble and lineman Terrence Tasila pressured Campuzano into an incomplete pass on a third-and-long after the Cardinals’ third giveaway of the half.
“Fortunately, our defense responded really well or else we could have been in a big hole pretty early in the game,” said Bishop coach Tom Crawford. “Defense rose up on each of those occasions and came up with the stop and got the ball back, and actually got us in position to put some points on the board.”
The rest of the points came in the second half.
Bishop got the ball to start the third quarter and quarterback Tua Rojas engineered a 64-yard, eight-play drive. Bartley scored the touchdown on a 16-yard sweep to the right side at the 8:33 mark.
The special teams got into the act as Samuel Crawford fielded a bouncing punt and bolted 66 yards to make it 21-0 with 2:14 left in the third quarter.
The Cardinals went up 28-0 at the start of the fourth quarter on a spectacular one-handed catch by Flint on a 34-yard pass from Rojas. He completed 9 of 13 passes for 151 yards.
“He’s been big for us in each of the games so far this season,” said Crawford of Flint, who’s also a standout volleyball player. “He’s a tough guy to cover because he has the height and the range and he runs well, and he can jump. From my angle, it looked like he made a one-handed catch (on the touchdown). I think the defender kind of grabbed his left arm and it looked like he cradled the ball with the other arm. He’s been playing really well, and tonight he played a ton on defense, which was the first time for us. That was great because his height matched up a little bit better with some of their height and speed (at wide receiver).”
Campuzano led the Eagles (2-3) on two scoring drives in the fourth quarter. He completed 20 of 35 passes for 235 yards and one touchdown.
“They had caused us quite a bit of concern because of their ability to both run and their quarterback throws a nice ball and he can put the ball down field as well,” said Crawford. “For us, this was a good marker to kind of get a sense of where we are and in terms of matching up against teams and so forth. So, in that regard, while we can’t be overly satisfied, it was nice to get the win.”
Bishop goes back on the road next Friday, playing at Bishop Alemany.
