■ Bishop Gorman freshman quarterback steals the show on senior night in 43-0 win over Faith Lutheran.
Freshman QB steals show with four TD passes
At Bishop Gorman’s senior night, it was a freshman who stole the show.
Micah Alejado was 14-for23 passing for 228 yards and four touchdowns Friday, and the Gaels romped to a 43-0 win over Faith Lutheran at Fertitta Field.
“He’s going to be really good. We’re really excited about him,” Bishop Gorman coach Brent Browner said. “This is his first real game. We have some other great quarterbacks that go along with him, but we wanted to see him play because we haven’t seen him. We’ve seen more of the other guys.”
Three of Alejado’s touchdown passes went to Zachariah Branch, who had six catches for 117 yards, and covered 32, 12 and 25 yards. Jonathan Brady caught the other, an 8-yarder. Cam Barfield ran for 101 yards, including a 68-yard touchdown, on four carries. He also had would-be scoring runs of 40 and 64 yards on the opening drive of the third quarter that were called back because of penalties.
Isaac Arreola got into the game in the fourth quarter and scored on a 24-yard run for Gorman (2-0), which rolled up 416 yards of offense.
The Gorman defense did the rest, and it didn’t allow much room for Faith Lutheran (2-1) to operate. Grant Wood was 4-for-20 passing for 48 yards and two interceptions, and Marcos Canales led the ground game with 15 carries for 24 yards.
About the only thing that kept it from being a perfect game for Gorman was penalties. The Gaels were assessed a personal foul before the game began and racked up 165 yards against them. The Gaels still put up 36 points in the first half, and the game was played under a running clock the rest of the way.
“The biggest thing was the emotion. The emotion of the game got away from us, even in the beginning of it,” Browner said. “The kids understood this is probably the last game they’re going to get, but that defensive group is scary.”
Gorman has one game left on its schedule against Moapa Valley, but Browner said this was the last one for the seniors.
The Gaels celebrated a few of their college-bound defensive starters, as Ma’a Gaoteote (Michigan State), D.J. Herman (San Diego State) and Tafao Amataga (Southern Utah) were pulled one by one late in the second quarter to an ovation from their teammates and fans.
“That was big. We had some offensive linemen and some other guys we wanted to do that with, but that was special,” Browner said. “Having those guys stay around is what keeps your team together when all this happens. If they don’t stay around, we have a great team, but is it this we see right now? I don’t know.”