By Rich Whittington <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Santa Fe Springs) – The St. Paul Swordsmen got their first win of the 2026 season Friday evening defeating the visiting Whittier Cardinals, 28-0, at Monsignor Cranham Stadium\u2026also known as \u201cThe Pit\u201d.
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The Swordsmen took control of this contest early, scoring on the game\u2019s opening drive when quarterback Joshua Villalta connected with receiver Cole Levario for a 21-yard touchdown. The extra point was added by Aero Arce, making the score 7-0 with 9:36 remaining in the opening quarter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
St. Paul increased the lead when running back Benjamin Lafferre scored on a 1-yard touchdown blast. The PAT was unsuccessful and it was 13-0 after one quarter of play.
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St. Paul continued its dominance in the second period as Villalta found Levario for a 10-yard score\u2026their second of the evening. The two-point conversion by Lafferre made it 21-0 with 6:55 to play in the opening half.
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The Swordsman posted their final score of the evening in the third quarter when Nikko Luevano scored on a 20-yard scamper. A second successful Arce kick made the score 28-0 with 4:30 remaining in the third period.
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Whittier was not able to establish a rhythm during this contest. Penalties, dropped passes, and fumbles kept the Cardinals from being successful.
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With the win, St. Paul improved to 1-2 while Whittier fell to 2-1.
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Next up for the Swordsmen is a showdown on Friday night against the Servite Friars at Orange Coast College. Whittier’s next contest is on Thursday night when the Cards will host the Bellflower Buccaneers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Rich Whittington (Santa Fe Springs) – The St. Paul Swordsmen got their first win of the 2026 season Friday evening defeating the visiting Whittier Cardinals, 28-0, at Monsignor Cranham Stadium\u2026also known as \u201cThe Pit\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12816,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hsfootball","category-high-school-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98442"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98448,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98442\/revisions\/98448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}