The University City (UC) Centurions defeated the San Marcos Knights in a non-league football game for the second year in a row, 49-20, at San Marcos on Friday, Sept. 7.
"Because they have lights, we played them at their place last season as well," UC coach Patrick Coleman said. "We won 34-27 last year, but it came down to a double-reverse pass that took us all the way down to the 1-yard line and we punched it in on the next play for the winning touchdown."
No such dramatics were needed this time around, as the Centurions opened the scoring when junior quarterback Skyler Dougherty fired a 26-yard touchdown pass to senior wide receiver Genaro Ramirez to give UC an early 6-0 first quarter lead.
"We definitely have the ability to be very good," Coleman said.
Dougherty illustrated just how good the Centurions could be later in the first quarter when he darted into the end zone from 1 yard out to extend the UC advantage to 14-0.
"We need to stay level-headed, in reality, and keep working hard," Coleman said.
In the second quarter, the Knights also continued to work hard as they sandwiched two touchdowns of their own around a 15-yard touchdown run by Centurion Alex Scarlett to cut the UC edge to 21-14 heading into the locker room at halftime.
"Right now, my challenge is to make sure that we don’t get too overconfident," Coleman said.
That can be a nice problem for Coleman to have, because it means that he’s coaching a talented team. After the intermission, it would’ve been easy for the Centurions to get cocky once it became the Alex Scarlett show. The senior running back added three more touchdowns and a 2-point conversion to his earlier score as UC pulled ahead 42-14.
"San Marcos is a North County team and most of their kids grow up playing Pop Warner football and a lot of ours don’t," Coleman said. "However, we did set the tone early and often."
The Knights may not have struck often, but they did strike late. It was a case of too little too late, though, as junior running back Martin Ramirez reached out for an 18-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Josue Rios.
In addition to his four touchdown runs, Scarlett led the Centurions with 125 yards rushing on 17 carries. Meanwhile, Dougherty completed 3-of-5 passes for 58 yards and a touchdown and senior kicker Kyle Berner booted five extra points for UC.
For San Marcos, Rios completed 11-of-21 passes for 121 yards and a touchdown, while senior running back Louie Engebrits led the Knight rushing attack with 42 yards and a touchdown of his own on 15 carries.
With the win, the Centurions improve their record to 2-0, while San Marcos falls to 1-1.
"We beat the (Montgomery) Aztecs in our first home game of the season," Coleman said. "Montgomery is a very physical football team. They defeated us, 31-3, at their place last year."
"So, I was very happy to see our guys play just as physical. That’s been the missing link for this team. We’re showing that this season we’re going to be physical."