Late-arriving Crusaders tame Jaguars, score 29-23 comeback win

Last Friday’s non-league football game between the visiting Mater Dei Catholic Crusaders and host Valley Center Jaguars was delayed 30 minutes after the Crusaders’ team bus was caught in traffic heading north.

The teams provided plenty of highlights for those who waited, including 52 points. Mater Dei Catholic scored the final touchdown of the game with just under four minutes remaining to steal a 29-23 victory.

“We are very excited to start the year with a win over a great program like Valley Center,” MDCHS head coach John Joyner explained. “It is a tough place to win and our boys played great coming back in the fourth quarter to start the year off right.”

Junior quarterback Chris Jones completed his first 10 passes of the game, including a 17-yard scoring pass to C.J. Verdell and a 69-yard scoring pass to Eli Shelton.

The visitors faced some adversity after that. A high snap led to a fumble recovery to position the Jaguars for the go-ahead touchdown — and a 16-14 lead — in the closing moments of the first half. Valley Center then scored the opening touchdown of the second half to increase its lead to 23-14.

The Crusaders rallied with the final 15 points of the game.

Verdell scored his second touchdown of the game on a six-yard run midway through the fourth quarter to make the score 23-21 in the Jaguars’ favor.

Verdell had a 27-yard gain on Mater Dei Catholic’s final scoring drive of the game as Jones scampered in from three yards out to put the visitors back on top for the final time. Jones finished the game with 231 passing yards by completing 17 of 24 attempts. He threw two touchdown passes and also rushed for one score.

Verdell had six receptions for 74 yards with one touchdown and 12 rushing attempts for 95 yards with one touchdown.
Jevon Bayless led the Crusader defense with 17 tackles, followed by Jayden Emberton-Gaines and Ruben Duran with 13 each. Emberton-Gaines was credited with one caused fumble while Duran was credited with one fumble recovery.

Duran’s fumble recovery set the Crusaders’ game-winning drive in motion.

Mater Dei Catholic recorded three sacks in the game: one each by Mario Williams, Pedro Chavez and Chris Galleta. Kyle Moses was also credited with two pass deflections.

Andrew Navarro scored two rushing touchdowns and racked up 173 yards on the ground to lead Valley Center.

The Crusaders next host defending San Diego Section Division II champion El Capitan on Friday, Sept. 4. Kick-off is 7 p.m.

The Vaqueros opened defense of their division title with a 44-7 non-league loss to sixth-ranked Madison last Friday.

Mariners sink Cavers 21-7, open 2015 season with solid finish

The host Mar Vista Mariners snapped a 7-7 halftime deadlock against the San Diego Cavers by scoring a touchdown in each of the final two quarters in last Friday’s non-league game to prevail by a sore of 21-7.

Khalil Spruill scored on runs of 32 and two yards while Michael Wilson scored on a three-yard run to cap scoring in the game for the Mariners.

Spruill had 22 rushes for 203 yards to pace the Mar Vista offense while Wilson, the team’s quarterback, also rushed for 41 yards and made one interception on defense.

“I thought we had some first game jitters during the first quarter — we fumbled a snap and botched a hand-off the first two plays of the game,” MVHS head coach Tyler Arciaga explained.  “We did some nice things at the end to finish the game by converting a key third-and-short and a fourth-down conversion to keep drives alive to kill the clock.

“We have a lot of work to do in order to improve on all three sides of the ball, but I thought we had a good effort and it gives us some momentum going into our first away game against Clairemont.”

The Mariners play at Clairemont on Friday, Sept. 4.