Santa Barbara was soaring during the third quarter of Thursday night’s game against Beverly Hills. The Dons took the lead on a field goal, stopped the Normans on a fourth-and-1 play and scored a touchdown on a beautifully executed screen pass.
But the bubble burst when a penalty nullified the touchdown and a pass was intercepted two plays later.
Beverly Hills capitalized with a go-ahead field goal, added a touchdown early in the fourth quarter and then held off a late Santa Barbara rally to beat the Dons 17-15 in an exciting nonleague football game at Peabody Stadium.
PHOTO GALLERY, DONS FOOTBALL TEAM PAGE
“We got to have a better mental game here,” said Santa Barbara coach Jaime Melgoza. “Tonight wasn’t our night, and we have to get better.”
Everything seemed to going right for the Dons at the start of the second half. Trailing 7-6, Robert Palmer recovered a Beverly Hills fumble at the Normans’ 26 and quarterback R.J. Rosborough drove the team to the 8 before Alejandro Jimenez booted a 19-yard field goal to give them a 9-7 lead.
The Dons’ defense came up big again on the next series, stopping Beverly Hills running back AJ Fortier on fourth down at the 34. That set up Rosborough’s screen pass to Chase Chandler, who weaved his way 31 yards for an apparent score.
But an illegal block call on the play proved to be a devastating blow for Santa Barbara.
Beverly Hills would reclaim the momentum and score twice more.
Normans’ quarterback John Davidi hit wide receiver Daniel Bradbury on a 65-yard pass play, which set up a 21-yard field goal by Adam Lasman and created the game’s decisive point swing. Instead of being ahead 16-7, the Dons trailed 10-9.
“That hurt us,” said Melgoza of the long pass play.
The Normans (1-1) burned the Dons deep again on their next touchdown. On a fourth-and-nine from the 24, Davidi threw a 23-yard strike to running back Frank Brown on the first play of the fourth quarter. Fortier ran it in from the 1 for a 17-9 lead with 11:14 left in the game.
Fortier and Davidi shared the quarterbacking duties for the Normans early in the game, but Davidi took over the controls late in the second quarter.
“He came in and got the offense moving,” Beverly Hills coach Donald Paysiner said. “Our starting quarterback got hurt last week, so we had to experiment with the two guys. We had different game plans and that threw Santa Barbara off.”
Davidi completed 4-of-6 passes for 120 yards and two touchdowns — he gave the Normans a 7-0 lead with an 11-yard pass to Matt Yashar in the first quarter.
Davidi had the Normans on the move again midway through the fourth quarter, but the Dons forced a fumble and Taylor Dawson recovered at the Beverly Hills 30.
Rosborough was clutch for Santa Barbara, leading the Dons on a 70-yard drive for a touchdown. He hit Kenny Foster for 12 yards on a third-and-10, scrambled and found Ricky Laguna for 21 yards on fourth and eight and tossed a four-yarder to Mark Perez for the touchdown on third and goal.
Trailing 17-15, the Dons went for two points, but Rosborough’s pass intended for Caleb Ballesteros fell incomplete.
The Dons got the ball back with 58 seconds left but they started at the Beverly Hills 15 and could get no further than the 27.
While the game was an improvement from the season-opening 28-0 loss at Oxnard, Melgoza expected more from his team.
“I still think we didn’t play up to par,” he said. “We made some really bad mistakes. We have to straighten out a lot things on offense — we made some bad decisions. On defense, we let that long ball go.”
Rosborough completed 19 of 34 passes for 195 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
He hit Foster on a 25-yard pass in the second quarter for the Dons’ first touchdown of the year. The point-after kick was blocked by the Nomans’ Greg Townsend, the son of the former Raiders’ all-pro defensive end by the same name.
Bryan Perez was the Dons’ leading receiver with four catches for 76 yards. Chandler added three for 55 yards.
“We just got to keep climbing that ladder and get better and win some ballgames,” said Melgoza.
BEVERLY HILLS 17, SANTA BARBARA 15
Beverly Hills…7 0 3 7 — 17
Santa Barbara…0 6 3 6 — 15
First quarter
BH — Yashar 11 pass from Davidi (Lasman kick), 1:42
Second quarter
SB — Foster 25 pass from Rosborough (kick blocked), 3:53
Third quarter
SB — FG 30, Jimenez, 9:14
BH — FG 21, Lasman, 3:57
Fourth quarter
BH —Fortier 1 run (Lasman kick), 11:14
SB —M. Perez 4 pass from Rosborough (pass failed), 2:23
TEAM TOTALS…….BH, SB
First Downs…15, 10
Rushes-yards…45-157, 20-32
Passing yards…133, 195
Total yards…290, 227
Passes…6-10-0, 19-34-2
Fumbles-lost…5-4, 1-1
Penalties…3-15, 3-38
INDIVIDUAL STATS
Rushing: BH—Fortier 20-76, Brown 15-52, Bruce 6-12, Kim 1-15, Davidi 1 (minus 2), Menach 1-15. SB — M. Perez 4-15, Rosborough 6-10, Cardenas 5-5, Stuva 3-4, Chandler 2 (minus 2).
Passing: BH—Davidi 4-6-0, 120 yards. Fortier 2-4-0,13 yards. SB—Rosborough 19-34-2, 195 yards.
Receiving: BH —Bradbury 4-120, Countryman 1-21, Bruce 1-(minus 8). SB — B. Perez 4-76, Chandler 3-55, Stuva 3-4, Foster 3-42, Jimenez 2-1, Laguna 2-10, M. Perez 2-4.
Missed FG: SB, 37
