The game was a battle of two area stars in the Saint’s Nico Barbone and the Eagles Jose Garay.  Both carried the ball for more that 200 yards and accounted for the majority of their team’s scores.

Barbone had the edge however as the Eagles young defensive front had a long night trying to bring down one of the areas toughest backs.  Barbone pounded his way to 237 yards on 23 carries and five touchdowns.

“We didn’t tackle the first half, we didn’t tackle the second half.  If you don’t tackle you don’t win.  We know what we got to work on.  We have seven new guys on defense who have never played varsity football before and they have to be able to tackle.  I knew we would have trouble stopping the run.  They (San Dimas) are a good team in our division and maybe we will see them down the road” commented Eagle Head Coach Erik Escamilla after the game.

Garay did his best to keep pace racing out the backfield and through San Dimas defenders for 217 yards and two touchdowns.  Not leaving his passing duties behind, Garay hooked up with Manny Acosta on three touchdowns through the air.

Like the two top rated Mid Valley division teams should play, the two teams traded scores all the way through the first half with the first coming on a Garay 11-yard run. The Saints countered with a 36-yard Barbone score.

With 3:52 left in the second quarter, Garay scored on a 24-yard giving South El Monte a 20-13 advantage after the missed point after.  San Dimas got the lead back on a 6-yard scamper by quarterback Mick Kalmar with under two minutes left in the half.  Daniel Joseph added a two point conversion on a 2-yard run.

The Eagles couldn’t hold on to their one point deficit going into the locker rooms at the half. Junior Anthony Molina couldn’t hold on to the ball as he raced up field with the ensuing kickoff. The Saints Brian Hilpert pounced on the lose ball setting up San Dimas deep in South El Monte’s end of the field.

Babone got his third touchdown of the half from 9-yards away giving the Saints an eight point advantage.

The Saints lead grew to 15 early in the second half when Erek Brown took the kick off to open the third quarter and weaved his way through the Eagle special teams unit.  Once in the clear, Brown turned on the jets and was gone for 93-yards and the score.

Down 22, South El Monte went on an eight play drive that covered 75-yards.  Garay found Acosta on the corner route from eight yards out to cut the lead to 16.

San Dimas pushed the lead back to 23 to end the third on a 16-yard run from who else, Barbone.

Barbone capped his stellar evening early in the final frame putting the final touches on a 66-yard drive running over the wore out Eagle defense.

South El Monte got one final score when Garay found his favorite target on the night, Acosta, as he got lose from his defender from 19-yards away.

After the game, San Dimas Head Coach Bill Zernickow talked about his team’s performance. “Our quarterback did a nice job managing the offense and our offensive line did a nice job opening up holes. Did we fumble; did we turn over the ball? No.  That’s what we like to see two weeks in a row.”

San Dimas -   13 15 21 07
South El Monte - 07 13 06 07

Passing:
SD – Kalmar 4-9-57
SEM – Garay 9-25-98 3tds

Rushing:
SD – Barbone 23-237 5tds, Joseph 5-52 1td, Brown 6-42, Kalmar 3-35 1td, Kohler 3-21
SEM – Garay 19-217 2tds, Flores 11-46, Padilla 4-23

Receiving:
SD – Rodriguez 2-32, Barbone 1-20, Joseph 1-15
SEM – Acosta 5-40 3tds, De Leon 3-29, Flores 1-8