San Marcos used its advantage in speed and an aggressive, hard-hitting defense to reclaim the Goleta Valley football title with a 34-14 victory over Dos Pueblos on Friday night at Scott O’Leary Stadium.
The result not only ended a seven-game losing streak in the crosstown series against the Chargers, it also gave the Royals their first win in Channel League play. Both teams are 1-4 in league.
Andre McCullough, Patrick Kelley and Nathan Jones used their speed to break off touchdown runs of 43, 27 and 69 yards, respectively, for San Marcos. Quarterback Josh Engel did a nice job running the offense and mixing the plays. He threw a pair of touchdown passes, 12 yards to Owen Launderdale and 21 yards to Luke Crawford.
Lauderdale spearheaded a tough defensive effort. He dished out several big hits and blocked a 52-yard field goal attempt by Greg Tripathi of Dos Pueblos with 30 seconds left in the first half.
Lauderdale was honored as MVP of game and was presented the Jeff Hesselmeyer Trophy, which is named after the man who served as head coach at both schools.
“He’s been our most consistent defensive player from day one,” San Marcos coach Ralph Molina said of Lauderdale. “He’s our free safety who wants to play free safety in college. I want him close to the line of scrimmage because he just flies everywhere. Sometimes he over does it and I have tell him to slow down. But he’s a big hitter and just gets guys going.”
On DP’s field goal attempt, Lauderdale came flying in from the end and smothered Tripathi’s kick.
“He just came off the edge, timed it right, had the right angle and boom,” said Molina. “That was huge. He told me, ‘I’ll get it coach, I’m gonna get it.’ That’s the kind of confidence that kid has.”
The blocked field goal enabled the Royals to take a 27-0 lead into halftime.
They scored on all four of their possessions in the half, starting with McCullough’s 43-yard scamper after taking a pitchout from Engel. The senior made a cut inside and was off to the races, scoring at the 8:50 mark of the first quarter. Luke Sheffey kicked the PAT.
McCullough rushed for 156 yards on 18 carries.
“Andre, I give him a lot of credit,” said Molina. “He’s banged up, his ankle is still banged up and he ran hard. You could imagine if he was 100 percent, but he’s a tough kid.”
Dos Pueblos went three and out, with Lauderdale making a big play on third and 3, tackling the ball carrier for a 1-yard loss at the 11.
San Marcos took advantage of the good field position after a 36-yard punt. McCullough ran 15 yards on third and 5 and Patrick Kelly took a pitch from Engel and raced 27 yards for a touchdown. Sheffey’s kick made it 14-0 at 4:17 of the first quarter.
Dos Pueblos’ offense finally got untracked as quarterback Ryan Marsh hit Cairo Rios for a 32-yard gain to the 50-yard line. The drive, however, stalled and San Marcos took over at its 13 after a Tripathi punt.
The Royals put together an impressive 87-yard drive, with Engel mixing passes and runs. He completed five passes on the drive and finished it with a 12-yard strike to Lauderdale. The PAT kick failed, leaving San Marcos ahead 20-0 at 8:32 of the second quarter.
Engel hit Luke Crawford for 21-yard touchdown pass and Sheffey converted the PAT kick for a 27-0 lead.
“It was a nice carry over from really the second quarter of last week’s game,” said Molina, referring to a 28-21 loss at Ventura. “I told them I’m not gonna give a bunch of speeches during the week. ‘If you don’t get pumped up for this one…’”
The Royals made it 34-0 on the second possession of the second half. They ran a reverse, with Engel handing off to McCullough and McCullough giving the ball to Jones going the other way. And Jones kept going all the way to the end zone.
“He’s been running hard at practice and that’s what we needed to see,” said Molina. “We got guys who can fill in and it’s been nice.”
Molina liked the attitude the players carried into the rivalry game.
“Our guys came out with a little swag, which I wanted to see, and they had some fun,” he said. “We executed. I thought Josh did a nice job tonight.”
Dos Pueblos coach AJ Pateras is still trying to get that kind of swagger from his team for a full game.
“Third and fourth quarter I thought we played harder,” he said. “We actually competed in the second half, which was nice.
“I can’t really explain why we come out (playing better) in the second half. I don’t know if it’s a pressure thing. We’re still trying to figure it out on terms of what the boys want to do when we come out prepared. Key injuries I think impacted us a little bit early, but that doesn’t change the outcome. It was more of they played harder than us.”
The Chargers did some good things with the passing game in the second half. Rios and Kian Green caught some accurate passes from Marsh, and David Buso provided some hard running.
Buso scored both touchdown on 1- and 4-yard runs in the fourth quarter. The scores were set up by Marsh passes to Rios and Green.
Dos Pueblos is now 3-5 overall and San Marcos is 3-4. The Chargers play at Santa Barbara next Friday while the Royals travel to Oxnard.