Second-half surge lifts Marauders
Monache defeats Div. III Hoover 37-7
Monache High School scored thirty-seven unanswered points against CIF Central Section Division III Hoover in a rout that almost felt surprising after the Marauders gave up a 60-yard touchdown run on the first play of the football game at Jacob Rankin Stadium Thursday evening.
Monache’s run game, led by the No. 1 rusher in Div. IV junior Aidan Galvan, made up for the Marauders’ less than stellar passing game. Galvan rushed for 189 yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries, exploding for 46-yard and 31-yard touchdown runs in the third quarter. But he wasn’t the only one to put in work behind a formidable offensive line.
The second half showed how gifted in talent and depth the Marauders’ rushers were with senior Adrian Santonocito and junior Trayvon Bradford getting their shots and producing. Santonocito finished with 24 yards and one touchdown on six carries while Bradford had 50 yards on three carries.
One drive that exemplified the contributions of Monache’s trio of backs was when Galvan broke off for a 35-yard run into Patriots’ territory. He was followed by Santonocito with a 10yard run, then two backto-back first-down runs from Bradford that set up a Santonocito 2-yard touchdown run.
“Of course Aidan was
one of those guys that, of course he’s patient, he’s patient and then he takes it,” MHS head coach Chris Frankland said. “We had a couple really nice runs in the second half. Adrian [Santonocito] showed some growing up tonight, he looked a lot better. Trayvon obviously [as well]. So our running game in the second half was really nice and that’s what I liked about coming out and responding to what I talked to them about.”
Penalties, fourth-down turnovers, interceptions by Galvan and junior Kaori Sims that didn’t translate into scores despite being in good field position, plagued the team but there was never a moment where one could truly count the Div. IV Marauders (3-1) out of the game.
“We had a very polite and quiet conversation at halftime and I was glad that they came out and responded in the second half,” Frankland said. “We had so many missed opportunities in the first half and we didn’t take advantages of those. And I think with a younger group, I think it’s really important to make that connection that that’s what an opportunity looks like and we’ve got to take advantage of it. They came out in the second half and we’re a lot tighter I thought. A lot more precise on our stuff, blocked the ball a lot better.”
After giving up the touchdown to Hoover’s Jordan Daniels, Monache answered on the following drive with a one-yard run punched in by senior back Moses Caraveo. Monache’s final scoring drive of the first half came in the final seconds of the first quarter when senior quarterback Antonio Andrade scored on a 1-yard run and then linked up with junior receiver Tori Powell for the 2-point conversion.
Andrade finished with 21 yards and one touchdown on seven rushes. He didn’t have the best day connecting with his receivers, completing just 6-of-20 passes for 75 yards. Bradford caught half of those passe for 52 yards.
But while Monache went scoreless in both the second and fourth quarters, their defense holding Hoover (0-3) to just seven points for nearly the entire game was commendable. Daniels had some big runs, racking up over 100 yards but while the running back who spent time as quarterback and receiver gave the Marauders a headache, he wasn’t unstoppable. He was sacked by Salvador Garcia, driven back on receptions by Sims and contained in the fourth by the Marauders’ defensive line. Of the Patriots’ 14 drives of the game, only once did they get into the Marauders’ red zone — but even then they couldn’t score.
“He’s just a phenomenal athlete,” Frankland said about Daniels. “And you know they hadn’t shown that. That was a new wrinkle for them and he was out there a lot tonight. After that first play of the game, give Coach [Carl] Scudder, Coach [Garrett] Box, our defensive coaches who made the adjustments that we needed to make and did a lot better job defensively and I was happy that our coaches did to that defense and our players as well.”
On Friday, Sept. 14, Monache travels to Bakersfield for a 7 p.m. game against Div. IV East Bakersfield (1-2). A win against the Blades would make the Marauders playoff eligible.