You couldn’t argue with San Marcos football coach Jeff Hesselmeyer after his Royals were picked apart by powerful St. Bonaventure 42-0 in the Channel League opener Friday night at Valley Stadium.
“That’s the best team we’re going to play, no doubt about it,” the coach said after the Seraphs won their 36th straight Channel League game and extended their overall league win streak to 60, dating back to 1996 when they played in the Tri-Valley League.
St. Bonaventure quarterback Logan Meyer had his way throwing the ball against the Royals, completing 23 of 30 passes for 272 yards and three touchdowns in less than three quarters.
“They have a good passing game, there’s no doubt about that. They’re not two-time defending state champs for nothing,” said Hesselmeyer, whose team dropped to 1-5.
“We tried to get a little more balance on offense,” St. Bonaventure coach Todd Therrien said of the Seraphs’ decision to throw the ball more frequently Friday. “We’ve either been missing the receivers or the receivers have been running wrong routes. The timing wasn’t there, so we had to fix that.”
Tieler Souza was Meyer’s favorite target, catching 10 passes for 122 yards and three scores.
Therrien gave the passing game a passing grade, but he wasn’t completely satisfied.
“We have a lot to work on,” he said.
Meyer said the plan for this game was to work on the passing game.
“Mainly throughout the week and for this game we worked on the deep ball, my timing and my patience in the pocket,” he said. “I think it worked pretty well tonight.”
Meyer had two runs where he couldn’t miss a receiver. After the two incompletions on the first series, he connected on his next six passes. Later in the game, he hit on a 11 straight passes.
Meyer hit Tim Bennett for 20 yards and Souza for 18 on back-to-back passes to set up Devon Blackledge’s 3-yard run for the Seraphs’ first touchdown at 9:02 in the opening quarter. Mason Kirk kicked the first of his six PATs.
The Seraphs (5-1) made it 14-0 on their next possession of the quarter. Meyer completed five passes on the 53-yard drive with Souza catching the touchdown toss from eight yards out.
“Tieler is a great receiver and he runs great routes. He had a good night,” said Meyer.
San Marcos’ Manny Hernandez pinned the Seraphs back to their 15 with a booming 63-yard punt, but that didn’t faze them. They went to their ground attack with Blackledge churning out chunks of yards behind an overpowering offensive line. He finished with 73 yards on 12 carries.
Meyer completed a 23-yard pass to Daniel Wakam on the drive before fullback Shaun Wick pounded out the final yards for the touchdown and a 21-0 lead with 8:44 left in the second quarter.
While Meyer had a good night throwing the ball, he did take some hits from the Royals (1-5, 0-1) and had a pass picked off by Garrett Polizzi.
Bennie Kirkwood sacked Meyer a couple of times and Joseph Aguilar drilled him in the back after he released the ball.
“He took a few too many shots tonight I would’ve liked, but he did a good job,” said Therrien.
“They came and brought it,” Meyer said of the Royals. “I got hit on my back at least four times. No. 47 and 85 (Aguilar and Kirkwood), they’re good football players.”
“Bennie did a good job rushing and so did Trevor Garcia,” Hesselmeyer said. “The linemen played hard in there. They just have good pass blockers.”
Meyer and Souza combined on a 7-yard touchdown pass just before halftime to make it 28-0.
Souza caught his third TD with 9:06 left in the third quarter and Chris De La Pena hauled in a 10-yard scoring pass from backup quarterback Marc Evans to complete the scoring.
San Marcos had the misfortune of catching St. Bonaventure coming off a bye week after it suffered its only loss of the season against Bishop Amat.
But the Royals battled hard against the football powerhouse.
“The kids didn’t quit, which is good. We’ve just got to find a way to move the ball on offense, though,” Hesselmeyer said. “We’ve got four games left and we’ve got to find a way to do a better job.”
ST. BONAVENTURE 42, SAN MARCOS 28
St. Bonaventure 14 14 14 0 — 42
San Marcos 0 0 0 0 — 0
First quarter
SB — Blackledge 3 run, Kirk kick, 9:02
SB —Souza 8 pass from Meyer, Kirk kick, 3:14
Second quarter
SB —Wick 1 run, Kirk kick, 8:44
SB — Souza 7 pass from Meyer, Kirk kick, :22
Third quarter
SB — Souza 5 pass from Meyer, Kirk kick, 9:06
SB — De La Pena 10 pass from Evans, Kirk kick, :21
TEAM TOTALS SB SM
First Downs…24, 5
Rushes-yards…22-94, 28-86
Passing yards…282, 9
Total yards…386, 95
Passes…24-33-1, 2-8-0
Fumbles-lost…0-0, 1-1
Punts-Avg…1-47, 6-38.7
Penalties…4-20 0-0
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing: SB—Blackledge 12-73, Wick 4-7, Schouder 3-11. Meyer 3-3. SM — Miller 9-27, Cruz 7-25, Kim 7-28, Perez 3-9, Crook 1-2.
Passing: SB — Meyer 23-30-1, 272 yards.. Evans 1-1-0, 10 yards. Arbuckle 0-1-0, Team 0-1-0. SM — Crook 2-8-0, 9 yards.
Receiving: SB— Souza 10-122, Wakam 5-47, Blackledge 3-30, White 2-26, Higbie 2-35, Hill 1-20, De La Pena 1-10. SM — Kirkwood 1-5, Blum 1-4.
Missed FG: None
