No. 20 Corsairs run past Vaqueros, 37-21

Santa Monica piled 38 first downs and 620 total yards on Saturday in a 37-21 American Pacific League football win over SBCC at La Playa Stadium.

The Corsairs, ranked No. 20 in California, remained perfect at 9-0 overall and 6-0 in conference. They've won four straight APL titles and 33 consecutive conference games. The Vaqueros fell to 4-5 and 3-3.

SBCC took a 7-6 lead midway through the first quarter on a 7-yard pass from Brandon Edwards to Jason-Matthew Sharsh. Santa Monica went ahead 23-7 at the half on two TD passes by quarterback Troy Williams and went on to score 31 unanswered points for a 37-7 lead with 4:20 to go in the third.

The Corsairs entered the contest as the highest-scoring team in the state, averaging 49.8 points.

"We knew they had a great offense and our offense would have to step up," said Vaquero quarterback Brandon Edwards, one of 16 sophomores who played their final home game. "They drove down and scored on their first drive and I told everyone we had to respond and put pressure on them.

"Things fell apart a little bit in the middle. We knew we could come back and we fought to the end. I'm proud of my teammates for never giving up."

Edwards completed 14-of-18 passes for 233 yards and two TDs. He alternated at quarterback with Alexander Cuevas, who completed 3-7 for 60 yards. Ronald Smith-Carter, a freshman from Westlake High, caught four passes for 112 yards.

Edwards missed last week's game with a bruised shoulder.

Kwame Duggins ran for 152 yards on 15 carries for a 10.1-yard average with one TD and Roger Jones picked up 132 yards on 21 attempts for SMC. The Corsairs outgained the Vaqueros on the ground, 361 to 46 yards.

Santa Monica ran 93 plays for its 620 yards and the home team had 339 yards on 56 plays. The Corsairs were 8-15 on third-down conversions and 3-4 on fourth down.

Williams, a sophomore quarterback from Narbonne High, is a bounceback from the University of Washington. He completed 24-of-35 passes for 253 yards and three TDs.

SBCC lost two fumbles and Santa Monica cashed both in for TDs on drives of 34 and 75 yards.

"Our big point of emphasis this week was not to turn the ball over," said coach Craig Moropoulos. "We had four turnovers against them last year and we knew we couldn't do that and expect to win. Both of our fumbles came on unusual plays – one was by a fly guy (wide receiver reverse by Calvin Crockett) who doesn't get handoffs often and the other came when we were racing to the end zone.

"I went with two quarterbacks this week because we have two good quarterbacks. Brandon throws a nice ball. He throws a deep ball that as good as anyone. They both do certain things that help us out.

"Playing two quarterbacks didn't hurt us. It was the two fumbles and the fact that we didn't tackle very well."

Santa Monica runs an extremely quick no-huddle offense with wide splits in the line.

"You better tackle them and get some heat on the quarterback," Moropoulos noted. "We had a couple of good chances to intercept balls and we couldn't hang on."

The Vaqueros scored the last two TDs on a 46-yard pass from Edwards to Crockett with 2:20 to go in the third and a 1-yard run by Deon Dickey that capped a 60-yard drive with 4:10 to go in the game.

Elisha Allen, a sophomore linebacker from Palmdale, made a season-high 17 tackles and Airistaca Gilliam had 12 of his 13 tackles in the first half. Gilliam recorded eight solo tackles and forced a second-quarter fumble that Evan Defer recovered.

Santa Monica commited 14 penalties for 143 yards and defensive back Carnell Lewis was ejected for getting his second unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the last play of the first half.

"I'm proud of our guys," Moropoulos said. "We're young with 16 sophomores out of 80 guys. A lot of our freshmen are on defense and they're going to get better and better."

The Vaqueros will play their final regular-season game on Saturday at Glendale with kickoff at 1 p.m.