By Ed Piper
This probably wasn't the way the La Jolla High coaches pictured this one coming out, in their most optimistic view.
Starting quarterback Jackson Stratton had been out since week 3, in a loss at Del Norte. Having seen him heal from a (lightly) fractured right scapula (back of the shoulder blade), insert him back into the lineup, and voila!--the Viking offense would resume running at high efficiency.
Plus, with any luck in the coin toss, elect to take the ball first, score first, and have the Vikings off and running against host St. Augustine, a winner of only one game coming in Fri., Oct. 29.
La Jolla did win the coin toss. Stratton, taking part in the pregame meeting with referees, did elect to take the ball first.
But then the Vikings didn't score on their first possession. St. Augustine, after their vast network of alumni tailgated in the parking lot at Mesa College pregame, played aroused and not like a team with only a single win against eight losses.
I asked Miles Scully, Justin's dad, what was the deal--why didn't La Jolla's dream scenario start playing out?
"Saints' line is much bigger."
Prominent in his massiveness on the right side of the offensive line for St. Augustine was 6'6" Misael Sandoval, who was listed at 317 pounds. Wow. Matt Blackburn, the Vikings' "little engine who could"--touted at a mere 260 pounds--looked starved in comparison.
That wasn't meant as an excuse. The Saints' size differential was real, and they were having an impact. The second straight week facing an outsized Catholic school line. Doesn't anyone think offering a Catholic private school education worth $20,000 is an inducement for a talented football player to enroll there?
The week before, Cathedral Catholic. Homecoming for CCHS then. Saints celebrated their Homecoming at halftime of the game Friday. A tailgater at St. Augustine's event remarked, "Does the scheduler have a sense of humor?" regarding the two straight weeks LJHS had to face the parochial schools.
After La Jolla scored its first touchdown on a Mason Powers strike from Stratton with 1:27 left in the first quarter, and a two-point conversion putting the Vikings in an 8-7 lead, La Jolla temporarily led.
Spence Carswell, on a botched hike on the conversion try, picked up the ball and ran it in, getting blasted at the goal line by a Saints defender. The Viking cheerleaders were already doing a cheer for the TD, lined up too close to the action. A cheerleader crumpled like a yarn doll like I have never seen before when Carswell, being tackled, crashed into her. She got up crying, maintaining that she wasn't hurt. It was a scary moment.
Powers made another nice grab of a Stratton pass in the back of the end zone to tie again, 15-15, with 7:40 left in the first half.
But a Vikings player and a Saints player both got kicked out for fighting moments later.
Going down 22-15 midway through the third quarter, as fog began to roll in to the Mesa College stadium, La Jolla struggled to stay in the game and fight back. An intercepted pass with 4:54 left in the third kind of cooked the Vikings' goose.
Jackson ran over on a keeper for a TD to close the gap--once again--to 22-21 with 6:12 left in the game. But that is where things stayed.
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