High school football: St. Vincent now 3-0 after rout of Elsie Allen

In what was a tale of two teams, the undermanned Elsie Allen High School football team was visiting an on-the-rise St. Vincent de Paul football program, and the game resulted in a 48-6 home win for the Mustangs on Saturday at Yarborough Field in Petaluma.

It was a slow start for both teams as each tried to establish themselves on offense with Elsie Allen playing its first game of the season and St. Vincent its third.

“We kind if came into the game blind not knowing what they were going to do, but they also came into the game with a disadvantage of not playing,” said St. Vincent head coach Trent Herzog.

For Elsie Allen, quarterback Vincent Martinez was on the run from the first snap with an inexperienced offensive line in front of him. That resulted in five sacks and three interceptions for the Mustangs defense.

“My kids are pretty tough, they’ve been through a lot,” said Elsie Allen’s head coach Dallas Packard, who took over the program just before the season was to begin. Elsie Allen canceled the first two scheduled games of the season to better prepare the club and increase the roster.

Overall for St. Vincent it was a successful showing, but its offense struggled early on the first drive, fumbling the ball on the second snap and allowing the Lobos to recover it.

One of Elsie Allen’s best drives was on the following series and was mostly thanks to a 50-yard run by Martinez, which he followed up with a 40-yard pass. This set the Lobos up on their first attempt in the opponent’s red zone.

But by the end of the series it did not end well for Elsie Allen, as penalties and a sack drove them back to the Mustangs’ 30-yard line. Then Martinez followed with his first interception for the day.

The Mustangs’ second drive of the afternoon culminated in a 60-yard touchdown run by St. Vincent starting running back Daniel Burleson, who led the way rushing for both teams with 117 yards on 12 carries and two rushing touchdowns.

St. Vincent churned out a couple of good gains in the running game and ended the drive with another touchdown run. This time it was Andrew Kohler who topped the drive off with a 6-yard touchdown run giving them the early 14-0 lead.

The passing game began to open up for the Mustangs late in the first half and with a comfortable lead starting quarterback Trent Free began to take some shots down the field and ended the half with two touchdown passes.

“Trent has a lot of talent. He’s thrown for a lot of yards the first two games but today we used him when we needed to,” Herzog said.

Free ended the game with 161 passing yards, completing seven of his 10 throws and two touchdowns. He now has nine total passing touchdowns for the season with only one interception.

Burleson racked up two more rushing touchdowns and by halftime it was already a 41-0 St. Vincent lead.

With the mercy rule in effect, and the clock now running, the Mustangs opened the second half just as they finished it, by establishing their offense with a couple nice runs and capped it off with a 50-yard touchdown pass from Free to wide receiver Marcus Matthias.

Late in the fourth quarter the Lobos were finally able to score. Set up by another big rushing gain from Martinez, he capped it off with a short touchdown run to put up the first points of the game.

St. Vincent is now 3-0 overall but have yet to play a league game. The Mustangs take on the Harbor Pirates at 6:30 p.m. Friday in Santa Cruz. The Lobos (0-1) will face McKinleyville at 7 p.m. Friday.