The name “Littlest Big Game” has been thrown around at Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table luncheons to describe the matchup, but it didn’t apply for Cate and Laguna Blanca on Saturday.
This one is simply “The Big Game” for them.
Santa Barbara High vs. San Marcos draws thousands of people, and Carpinteria vs. Bishop has been a crosstown showdown for decades. But for the 8-man squads, Saturday’s clash at the Rams’ scenic campus was the one that’s been highlighted on the schedule.
After two previous Cate blowouts, this year’s Condor-League duel proved much more interesting as a 28-19 lead for the Owls flopped over and wound up a 57-34 decision in favor of Cate in front of a healthy crowd at the school’s parents weekend.
Smooth-running Rams running back Randy Person finished with a whopping six touchdowns in the game.
“I was worried that my last game against Laguna was going to be a bad one,” said Cate quarterback Michael McMahon. “This whole week it’s been very tense between us and Laguna. There were some heated words shared, and we’ve been paying for it all week in sprints. It’s good to back those up just a little bit.”
McMahon did it all on Saturday, scoring on the ground and consistently picking up key yardage on option keepers. He was also in the midst of it all defensively, and made some great plays as the team’s kicker, placing one punt perfectly out of bounds at the 7-yard line.
Speed-demon Luther Tarver-Burks was Laguna’s big-play guy, scoring three touchdowns including a kickoff return for a score and a nice 50-yard scamper after a screen pass in the second quarter. The touchdown was made possible by a crushing block from Sam Kent.
But this was Cate’s day, and the Rams were visibly more energetic on the sidelines in the second half. When he wasn’t on the field battling in the trenches, captain Josh Han, a senior lineman from Korea, was bellowing loud enough to be heard in Seoul.
It wasn’t so on the Owls’ side of the pitch.
“It was mainly fatigue,” said Tarver-Burks. “We have a lot of injuries. Our backup running back and starting tight end were out, so we had to make a lot of shifts and put people in places they weren’t used to.”
The teams traded touchdowns to start the game, with Person opening things up. Tarver-Burks responded with one, followed by McMahon, followed by a long scoring pass from Laguna’s Conor Murphy to Chris Bremner. Cate had the PAT blocked on its first touchdown and couldn’t convert the 2-point try on the second, leaving the Owls up 14-12 after one quarter.
The Rams opened the second with a long drive capped off by a Person touchdown run, but Tarver-Burks answered back with a big return on the kickoff and a scoring pass from Murphy to Jason Kurilla put the Owls up 21-20 with nine minutes left in the half.
The two teams had not played a game all season that hadn’t ended in a mercy-rule decision, but with the lead changing hands five times in the first half, it was apparent there would be no mercy between the rivals.
“That was a tough one,” said Rams coach Ben Soto. “We knew they were going to play tough and they did. they’re well-coached and they always play with a lot of spirit, and we knew it was going to be a ballgame.”
Tarver-Burks’ big screen-pass score ensued, but the Owls couldn’t convert on three tosses to the corner of the end zone on their next drive, leading to a fumbled field-goal snap.
McMahon found Person on a 39-yard pass play late in the half, and Person would punch it in a few snaps later to pull the Rams within two at 28-26 at the break.
Cate opened up the third quarter with a six-play march downfield capped by a 4-yard Person score, and the hosts would hold the lead for the rest of the afternoon. Jackson Mauze and Houston Bradley stalled the ensuing Laguna drive with a key sack of Murphy on third down, and the Rams seized the opportunity to pull away.
Tarver-Burks’ kickoff return to the house at the end of the period would be the last hoot of the day for the Owls.
“It was a great football game,” said Owls coach Ray Robitaille. “We’re just not deep. It was the first time we’ve gone four quarters all year… They definitely just wore us down.”
Laguna Blanca (1-4, 0-1 Condor League) will need to win its remaining three games to make the postseason, while the Rams (3-2, 1-0) will have to keep up the momentum heading into another rivalry game at Thacher in Ojai next week.
(Photos taken by John Dvorak/PresidioPics)
