By Alex Gonzalez
Pasadena— Village Christian quarterback Nate Bennett tossed five touchdown passes and added another one on the ground to help lead the Crusaders to a 54-25 win over La Salle high school Friday night at Kohorst Field.
To start the 2021 campaign, Bennett and CO. wasted little time driving down the field on their opening march to score the game’s first points of the night. The six-play drive consumed 63 yards, ultimately capped off by Bennett, who connected with Rhett Gordon for 42 yards out.
Following the score, the Crusaders played keep away from the Lancers and successfully recovered their onside kick that put the offense on La Salle’s side of the 50-yard line. Three plays later, Bennett scrambled out of the pocket and tucked the ball in for the six-yard score. With the 2-point conversion good, Village Christian quickly jumped to a 14-0 lead over the Lancers with 9:29 remaining in the opening frame.
“I didn’t expect anything less, you know?” said Bennett after the game. “We’ve been working for this for, I don’t know how many months, but we have just been grinding. It’s our time now.”
Once La Salle could recover the Crusader’s onside attempt, the Lancers could cut into the 14-point deficit. Richie Munoz found his tight end through the middle of the zone, scoring the team’s first touchdown of the 2021 season.
The Lancers then cut the lead down to two late in the first quarter when Munoz hooked up with Charles Adair, who took the pass, slipped past his defender, and outran the rest of Village Christian’s defense for the touchdown.
V.C. then started to pull away behind Bennett’s back-to-back touchdown passes to Julius Oliver before the intermission. The first came when Bennett found Oliver running the end zone fade for the score. The second score came when Bennett’s pass was deflected and landed in Oliver’s hand just before the second quarter ended.
Village Christian went into intermission up 26-12
The Lancer’s third scoring drive came as they opened the second half with possession. Munoz was able to march his offense down the field to only connect with his tight end for the second time of the night to make the score 26-19 after the PAT was missed.
Then the Crusaders rattled off 21 straight points in the third period to increase their lead to 47-19. Bennett tossed a pair of touchdown strikes to Oliver for the third time of the night and also found Gordon. Tailback Logan Everett joined the party when he punched in a rushing score.
La Salle was able to add a touchdown midway through the fourth when Munoz dumped the ball to his tailback on the screenplay, who then darted his way to the end zone for the 81-yard score.
That was the last of the scoring drives for the Lancers as they had difficulty containing Village Christian’s front four, which forced six sacks in the contest. Their final possession of the night ended as the ball was snapped low in the end zone only to have V.C. recover it for the score.
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