Their senior quarterback went down, and things got scary a day early for the Bishop Diego Cardinals.
Anthony Martinez injured his throwing shoulder in the second quarter and the Cardinal offense was never able to get rolling again in a 42-10 loss to nemesis Santa Clara at La Playa Stadium Thursday.
Notre Dame-bound running back Cierre Wood finished with a relatively modest 149 yards on 15 carries for the visitors, scoring his 19th and 20th touchdowns of the season in the first quarter. But his mere presence on the field, often as a decoy, allowed the Santa Clara offense to open up other seams and take advantage. The undefeated Saints racked up a total of 326 rushing yards on the evening.
“When they don’t shoot themselves in the foot with turnovers and penalties they’re pretty tough,” said Cardinals coach Tom Crawford of Santa Clara, which beat the Cardinals 42-41 during last year’s Frontier League campaign and then 20-14 in overtime of the CIF championship game.
Both teams have been moved up to the Tri-Valley League, and Santa Clara will need to pull out all the stops next week against mighty Oaks Christian.
Martinez suffered a dislocation in the joint where the collarbone connects with the sternum. It was popped back in, but Crawford said that the senior is doubtful for next week and will need to be evaluated thoroughly Friday.
“With our quarterback situation what it was tonight, it was real hard to generate anything,” said the coach.
Art Gonzalez took Martinez’s spot under center and did a nice job getting the ball downfield on the last drive of the first half, which started at the Bishop 37 with 1:28 remaining. A 15-yard scramble by Gonzalez got the Cardinals down to the Santa Clara 33. The senior then found Des Vanderfin down the left side of the field on a 17-yard strike, and Sam Verhasselt booted a 32-yard field goal as time expired to send the Cardinals into the locker room down 21-10.
Bishop’s defense played stingy to start the second half. RJ Escamilla and Conner MacGillivray joined on a nice tackle for a loss of yardage to stifle Santa Clara’s first drive, and the combo of JD Yonke and Paul Ortega stopped the next one with a sack of Michael Laubacher that forced a Santa Clara punt.
But in between those two series, Bishop went three-and-out while moving back three yards. And after the Yonke-Ortega sack, the Cardinals would go three-and-out again.
The Saints broke through sending Wood in motion as a decoy and getting big yardage up the gut as Donald Espinosa rumbled through for an 8-yard Santa Clara touchdown that made it 28-10 with 2:12 left in the third quarter.
The rain started to fall lightly in the fourth quarter, as did Bishop’s chances at any sort of comeback. The Saints scored their final two touchdowns with relative ease.
“When the score gets like that, I don’t know whether it’s a fatigue issue or a scoreboard issue,” said Crawford. “But our guys had to be out there a lot… I don’t think we had a problem in terms of effort. I think we had execution problems.”
The Cardinals’ lone touchdown was scored on a picture-perfect screen pass from Martinez to Escamilla, who turned upfield and ran it 72 yards for the score. But Martinez would soon be out of the game, and although Gonzalez looked poised on the drive just before the half, the Bishop offense was virtually halted for the rest of the night.
Gonzalez’ younger brother, freshman Brandon, saw some snaps after his brother went out with cramps.
Next up for the Cardinals is the “Little Big Game” against Carpinteria, and with both teams struggling, the opportunity for a rivalry win will certainly turn the heat up.
“You never have to worry about a lack of effort in that game,” said Crawford.
Santa Clara 42, Bishop Diego 10
Santa Clara 14 7 7 14—42
Bishop Diego 7 3 0 0—10
First quarter
SC — Wood 2 run (Werre kick), 3:04.
BD — Escamilla 72 pass from Martinez (Verhasselt kick), 1:43.
SC — Wood 76 run (Werre kick), :31.
Second quarter
SC — Lackey 32 pass from Laubacher (Werre kick), 4:57.
BD — Verhasselt 32 FG, 0:00.5
Third quarter
SC — Espinosa 8 run (Werre kick), 2:12.
Fourth quarter
SC — Gleason 9 pass from Laubacher (Werre kick), 11:49.
SC — Hull 8 run (Werre kick), 7:25.
SC BD
First downs 16 6
Rushes-yards 43-334 23-34
Passing yards 92 101
Comp-Att-Int 6-12-0 6-12-0
Sacks-yards lost 1-8 2-21
Punts-avg. 3-26.7 6-22.5
Fumbles-lost 0-0 4-2
Penalties-yards 8-55 4-30
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Santa Clara: Wood 15-149, Espinosa 11-86, Lackey 7-72, Pounds 3-10, Torres 4-9, Hull 2-8. Bishop Diego: A. Gonzalez 3-16, B. Gonzalez 1-11, Martinez 3-4, Escamilla 7-4, Garcia 5-2, Bruce 3-1, Bortolazzo 2-(minus 4).
PASSING — Santa Clara: Laubacher 6-12-0-92. Bishop Diego: Martinez 2-4-0-81, A. Gonzalez 2-4-0-16, B. Gonzalez 2-3-0-14, Escamilla 0-1-0-0.
RECEIVING — Santa Clara: Espinosa 3-49, Lackey 1-32, Gleason 1-9, Wood 1-2. Bishop Diego: Escamilla 2-71, Vanerfin 1-17, A. Gonzalez 1-9, Bruce 1-9, Garcia 1-5.
MISSED FIELD GOALS — SC: 49 (short)
TEAM RECORDS — Santa Clara 8-0, 3-0; Home 1-7, 0-3.
