Dos Pueblos Routed by Pacifica
The Chargers Suffer Lopsided Defeat
Pacifica’s Michael Johnson III returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown and the Tritons never let their foot off the gas in a 49-0 rout of Dos Pueblos on Saturday night at Warkentin Stadium.
The loss provides a mega dose of a reality to a Dos Pueblos team that advanced to the CIF-SS Division 10 finals last season, but returned just two starters on defense.
“It’s not a desire thing. It comes down to not executing our keys and our reads and our fits and our fills. They just weren’t there,” said Dos Pueblos coach Doug Caines. “We struggled with that last week and obviously that continued. We had a special defense last years. We’re returning two guys and none of them are in the box.”
The fact that Dos Pueblos is replacing it’s entire front seven on defense was apparent at every juncture of the games as Pacifica imposed its will with the run game.
The Tritons marched 80-yards on their first offensive possession of the game and finished off the five-play drive with a 42-yard touchdown run by Malik Sherrod.
After recovering a pooch kick that Dos Pueblos failed to field, Pacifica put together a ruthless, four-play 26-yard drive, capped off by a ten-yard touchdown run by Allan Johnson, increasing their lead to 21-0 with just over four minutes remaining in the first quarter.
“It’s our first game. We haven’t scrimmage anybody. We haven’t played anybody so we really didn’t know what we had,” said Pacifica coach Mike Moon. “We’ve had a really good camp, but until you play somebody else…. We know DP is a good team and they’re big up front so it kind of surprised us a little bit.”
Pacifica tacked on two more touchdowns before halftime on a 13-yard run by Allan Johnson and a nine-yard pass from quarterback R.J. Maria to Savonne Perris Farmer to take a 35-0 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Dos Pueblos could never get on track offensively in the second half as quarterbacks Mason Boelter and David Leon were constantly harassed by the Pacifica pass rush. Even more alarming was the inconsistency of the Chargers’ vaunted rushing attack.
Dos Pueblos running backs Eric Lopez, Brandon Miguel and Udy Loza would break of nice runs on occasion, but penalties and negative plays inevitably snuffed out promising drives.
“We’ve just got to continue to get better,” Caines said. “None of our goals were based on beating Pacifica in the (non-league).”
