Ramon Harper rushed for three touchdowns on five carries, and Santa Barbara High built a 35-7 lead and rolled to a 42-13 win over Beverly Hills in its football homer opener on Saturday at Peabody Stadium.
The Dons dominated Beverly Hills, which was playing its season opener. They outgained the Normans 353 yards to 165.
It was a big turnaround from the season opener for Santa Barbara, which lost 47-7 at St. Joseph.
“It’s amazing how, through the course of the season, you improve game-in and game-out,” Santa Barbara coach Doug Caines said. “You definitely find out your flaws when you get your butt thumped like we did last weekend.
“We answered the challenge. I definitely challenged our kids in practice, with our conditioning and our execution.”
Harper, a bruising running back, scored on runs of 40, 20 and 7 yards. He also caught a two-point conversion pass.
Cherokee Cunningham also gave Beverly Hills’ defense trouble. He rushed for 67 yards on 12 carries and caught five psses for 63 yards.
“It’s tough when you’ve got two workhorses to feed both,” Caines said of Harper and Cunningham. “That’s going to be my biggest challenge this year, is to keep both of those guys happy.
“The truth is, we’re able to be a lot more effective by using both of them, and keeping both of them fresh,” he added. “Neither of them really got tired because we did have that nice 1-2 punch.”
The defense also got into the act. Russel Endholm returned an interception 23 yards for a touchdown to give the Dons a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.
The Dons put the game out of reach in the second quarter with three touchdowns. James Hale caught a 12-yard pass from quarterback Brent Peus, Harper bolted for a 20-yard score and Daniel Vallin caught a 30-yard TD strike from Peus.
Peus completed 12 of 21 passes for 153 yards and two touchdowns.
Santa Barbara (1-1) plays at Atascadero on Friday.
Beverly Hills 7 0 6 0 — 13
Santa Barbara 14 21 7 0 — 42
Scoring
First Quarter
SB — Harper 40 run (run failed), 1:54.
SB — Endholm 23 interception return (Harper pass from Peus), 1:32.
BH — Brown 76 kickoff return (Brito kick), 1:17.
Second Quarter
SB — Hale 12 pass from Peus (Lopez kick), 7:27.
SB — Harper 20 run (Lopez kick), 4:23.
SB — Vallin 30 pass from Peus (Lopez kick), 1:23.
Third Quarter
BH — Brown 1 run (kick failed), 1:44.
SB — Harper 7 run (Lopez kick), 0:16.
SB B
First Downs 13 11
Rushes-Yards 31-150 32-48
Passing Yards 203 117
Total Yards 353 165
Passing 16-30-0 11-23-1
Punts-Yards 2-41.5 6-24.8
Fumbles-Lost 1-0 4-2
Penalties-Yards 8-81 5-30
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing — BH: Brown 15-49, Torres 8-17, Kolko 3-7, Bialobos 6-minus 25. SB: Harper 5-75, Cunningham 12-67, Gutierrez 5-18, Hale 3-5, Solis 2-3, Conliffe 1-0, Peus 2-minus 9, Iwanaga 1-minus 9.
Passing — BH: Bialobos 11-23-1—117. SB: Peus 12-21-0—153, Hale 3-7-0—41, Solis 1-2-0—9.
Receiving — BH: Sachs 4-42, Johnson 4-35, Nwanko 1-17, Green 1-14, Kwon 1-0. SB: Cunningham 5-63, Vallin 3-48, Guzman 3-25, Hale 2-39, Iwanaga 2-17, Kelly 1-9.
Missed field goals — None.
