The visiting Vaqueros (1-7, 1-3 APC) picked up their first win by outgaining the home team 362 to 160 in total yards. Glendale won in spite of 15 penalties for 159 yards.
Santa Barbara (0-9, 0-5) struck first with a 37-yard field goal by Adam Maisch with 6:20 to go in the opening quarter. Glendale took a 14-3 lead at halftime while scoring the next four touchdowns on short runs.
The visitors stretched the lead to 28-3 on a 4-yard TD by Timothy Broughton with 1:18 left in the third period. Glendale finished with 217 rushing yards on 54 attempts and SBCC had 94 on 28 tries.
The hometown Vaqueros got nine of their 12 first downs in the second half and scored a pair of TDs in the final quarter.
The first one was a trick play on the third play of the fourth quarter. QB Jake Umphreyville threw backward to tight end Tyson Heller, who then tossed a 19-yard TD to Dominic Losco in the center of the end zone. The second TD — a 17-yard toss from Umphreyville to Pierre Hale — came with 8:33 to play and cut the deficit to 35-17.
“We’ve been struggling all season offensively but we keep coming after it,” said SBCC coach Craig Moropoulos. “Tyson has a good arm and I knew if we could get it off, it would probably work.”
It was the final home appearance for 14 SBCC sophomores. Offensive lineman Kenny Ruiz was injured on the first series and never returned.
“We lost our best offensive lineman on the second play and that hurt,” Moropoulos added. “You can’t keep putting it on your defense. We just wore down.”
Chad Wright gained 53 yards on nine attempts and Alonzo Winn had 51 on 10 tries for Santa Barbara. Safety Mitch Nelson led the defense with 12 tackles while Chad Quirarte had 11. Mike Spiritosanto and Tom Borchert contributed 10 apiece. Spiritosanto recovered a fumble on Glendale’s opening drive.
SBCC travels to first-place West L.A. for its final game on Saturday at 1 p.m.
