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The562’s coverage of St. Anthony athletics is sponsored by Jane & B.I. Mais, Class of 1948.
St. Anthony coach Jeff Magdaleno got an early look at what his team is capable of, and what adjustments will be needed, after the Saints lost 47-15 to Mount Miguel Friday night in the season opener at Clark Field.
“Lack of execution, shot ourselves in the foot a few times to end drives,” Magdaleno said. “And then giving up big plays on defense. And really for us, it’s not our identity, right? We have to execute. We’ve got to avoid the big play on defense, you know, force teams to drive the length of the field. And we didn’t do that.”
On their opening drive the Saints marched 58 yards to take the lead when Noah Furlow found Marco Transfigaracion for a 17-yard touchdown. St. Anthony led 7-0 with 8:37 left in the first quarter.
The Matadors immediately matched that with a big play as quarterback AJ Stowers connected with AJ Lawson for an 80-yard touchdown on their first play of the next drive to tie the game.
With eight minutes left in the first quarter the teams traded turnovers. St. Anthony’s fumble proved to be costly after the Matadors’ Dominic De Arcos recovered the ball deep inside Saints’ territory. Stowers wasted no time as he connected with Parris Vernon for a 43-yard touchdown to give the Matadors a 13-7 lead.
The Saints continued to battle in the first half as they traded scoreless drives. St. Anthony had an opportunity to tie and take the lead heading into halftime, but with time winding down the Matadors came up with four huge goal line stops to keep St. Anthony out of the end zone.
In the second half, the Matadors rattled off 27 unanswered points when they went to a balanced offense to put the game out of reach.
Mount Miguel’s AJ Stowers had a huge night finishing 10-for-15 with 273 yards and three touchdowns. He had touchdown passes of 80, 43 and 76 yards.
St. Anthony stopped a 40-0 run after Aidan Jones found Jasiah Lolesio-Pua for a 6-yard touchdown pass to cut the lead to 40-15.
The Saints running backs combined to gain for 107 yards on 29 carries. Nate Martinez led the way with 85 yards on 23 carries. Quarterbacks Noah Furlow and Aidan Jones both saw action with a combined 36 yards passing and each throwing a touchdown pass.
“We’ve got a lot of things to teach off of,” Magadelno said. “But very optimistic. I mean, I’m proud of the way that we fought. We let up a little bit in the third quarter, which, you know, wasn’t happy about a couple plays here and there. But, I mean, you look at the first, second, and fourth quarters, right? If we play a whole game like that, you know, we’re going to be in a lot of games.”
The Saints will be back at Clark Field on Thursday when they take on Lakewood.
