Cardinal Newman rolls past Maria Carrillo

Giancarlo Woods had a football game to remember Monday night for Cardinal Newman High School.

Maria Carrillo would rather forget it.

Woods, a 6-1 senior wide receiver and defensive back, had touchdowns four ways to help his Cardinals defeat host Carrillo, ?49-0, in a game delayed 10 days by the Kincade fire and evacuations.

Woods scored on a five-yard run, scooped up a teammate’s fumble and ran it in 31 yards, ran back the opening kickoff of the second half for a touchdown and caught a 10-yard pass in the end zone to round it off.

The loss puts Maria Carrillo against the wall for a must-win game Saturday to qualify for the North Coast Sectional Division 4 playoffs.

Newman, 8-1 overall and 4-0 in the North Bay League-Oak Division, is assured of a D4 berth and a seed likely in the top three.

Carrillo, 4-5 and 1-3 after the loss, needs a victory against Windsor to make the eight-team sectional bracket, coach Jay Higgins said.

“It’s been a challenging week with everything our community went through,” Higgins said of the smoke, the fire and the evacuations. “Our student body was scattered all over the state. It’s not an excuse. Our guys were eager for the game and came for the battle.

“On Saturday night it puts us against an opponent that has been resting.”

Windsor, 6-3 and 2-2 in the Oak, will host the Pumas at ?7 p.m. Newman finishes its season against Analy, 1-8 and 0-4.

“Absolutely, it’s do or die,” Higgins said.

Monday’s game was one the Pumas would like to put in their rear-view mirror as soon as possible.

Newman’s defense shut down Carrillo the entire game, allowing the Pumas only as deep as their 27-yard line.

Meanwhile, the Cardinals seemed to march down the field almost at will, particularly in the first half.

After Carrillo punted on its first possession, Newman took over on its own 42, and in less than a minute, made the score 7-0 on a Jackson Pavitt six-yard run, set up by a Shane Moran ?28-yard run.

It didn’t get much better for Carrillo.

The Pumas went three-and-out on the next possession, and Moran blocked the punt at the Pumas’ 16-yard line.

One play later, Woods ran in untouched from the five-yard line for his first of his four touchdowns of the night.

Even when Newman had bad luck, it went their way.

After taking over on downs at their own 48-yard line, Zack Moran gained 17 yards on a nice run. But on the following play, a Newman rusher coughed up the ball along the left sideline.

Woods - who seemed to be everywhere Monday - gathered up the fumble and sped 31 yards in for his second score.

One more for Newman, this one from the defense, came just two plays later.

Emylio Vega sacked Carrillo quarterback Tyler Monaco, who couldn’t hang onto the ball and linebacker Mitch Russell picked it up and ran it in for a touchdown to give Newman a 28-0 lead after only eight minutes of football.

“I saw Hunter Graniss blitzing,” Russell said. “I knew he was going to try to strip it so I watched for it. I didn’t want to get it on a knee, I wanted to score.”

Russell has one other touchdown this year, a runback of a blocked punt.

Carrillo just couldn’t break through Newman’s defense, relinquishing possession twice on downs and being forced to punt four times in the first half.

Newman quarterback Pavitt connected on 12 of 15 pass attempts for 145 yards and one TD in the air. He rushed seven times for 40 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.

Following this weekend’s final NBL games, the North Coast Section seeding committee meets Nov. 10 to create the sectional playoff brackets.

You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.