Mustangs overwhelm Wildcats

St. Vincent High School’s football Mustangs did their best to wear out their new artificial turf Saturday afternoon, marching up and down at a parade pace on their way to a 46-0 win over Calistoga in the first round of the North Coast Section Division V playoffs.

The Wildcats were courageous, but were outnumbered, outweighed, outtalented and outplayed by the defending NCS champion Mustangs.

St. Vincent scored on both its and Calistoga’s first possessions of the game, and never slowed through the first half.

It took St. Vincent just five plays to go 58 yards in its first possession, with Josh Wheless pinpointing a pass to Nick Eastham for a 9-yard touchdown.

A pair of personal foul penalties on St. Vincent for late out-of-bound hits helped Calistoga nudge into Mustang territory in its first ball ownership, but the drive ended in a Wildcat double hurt when quarterback Lucas Fernandez bumbled a pitch that was picked up by Connor Ciocci and returned 59 yards for a Mustang touchdown.

The play not only hurt Calistoga on the scoreboard, but on the playing field because Fernandez, the Wildcats’ best all-around player, injured his ankle on the play, and was lost for the game.

His sophomore replacement, Jose Sanchez, tried gamely, but was no match for the aggressive Mustang defense.

Before the Mustangs turned the game over to its reserves in the second half, St. Vincent already had 40 points and more than 300 yards in total offense. They finished with an unofficial total of 351.

Calistoga hurt itself with six turnovers, the most forced by the Mustangs this season.

The only negative for St. Vincent on a bright fall day of many positives was penalties. St. Vincent was flagged six times for 70 yards in penalty losses.

Mustang coach Gary Galloway acknowledged that the Mustangs weren’t overly challenged, but said his team benefited from the game.

“I didn’t want a bye,” he said. “It was nice to play at home. We had a chance to get everyone into the game, even the JVs we brought up for the playoffs.

“We had too many penalties. I’m not sure what the problem was, but we’re going to fix it.”

St. Vincent running back Kris Farinha, the leading ground gainer in the Redwood Empire with 1,598 yards going into the game, gained 116 on just nine carries, while Ciocci had 46 on nine carries and Wheless added 41 on five carries. Wheless also completed three of four passes for 65 yards. Backup quarterback Jeff Matthews was one of two throwing for 22 yards.

There was plenty to enjoy for all the Mustangs.

After St. Vincent’s initial two touchdowns, the Mustangs tacked on another first-quarter score when Farinha simply ran over would-be Mustang tacklers en route to a 70-yard touchdown.

Spencer Willin, St. Vincent’s 225-pound outstanding two-way lineman, was given the ball once offensively and made the most of the opportunity, bulldozing into the end zone from the 1-yard line.

A Calistoga fumble on the ensuing kickoff return, set Wheless up for a 29-yard scoring throw to Eastham.

Before the half, St. Vincent manufactured an impressive 75-yard scoring march, capped by Jeff Kesler’s 3-yard touchdown sprint around right end.

Trailing 40-0 after two quarters, Calistoga came out determined to reverse things and immediately jumped offside, and followed that offense by losing a fumble.

Ross Borr recovered to put St. Vincent into position for a short 34-yard march finished by Ciocci’s 1-yard touchdown run. Mitch Reddick cleared the way with a key block.

Calistoga played St. Vincent’s reserves even for the remainder of the game.

The gutsy Wildcats ended their season with a 5-6 record.

St. Vincent, with the win, moved a step closer to a repeat NCS championship, improving to 8-3.