Anitoni’s clutch plays push Justin-Siena past Archbishop Riordan
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Momentum changes can happen quickly in high school sports.
Things also tend to get a bit weird on Friday the 13th with a full moon.
As it turned out, both were true in Justin-Siena’s 43-31 victory over Archbishop Riordan-San Francisco.
Everything changed for the Braves (4-0) with three minutes left in the game when Solomone Anitoni scored back-to-back touchdowns to put the game away. First, he took a kickoff back 90 yards for a score to give Justin-Siena a 35-31 lead. Then, he recovered a Riordan fumble and took it back for a 15-yard touchdown with 2:45 remaining.
“Solomone is a playmaker,” Justin-Siena coach Brandon LaRocco explained. “At the end of the day, for three years he’s made big plays for us at big moments. And this is this game is no different. I mean, he just has a knack for making it happen. He loves the pressure, right? And when the pressure’s on him that’s when he shines.”
“Something all clicked in our head that we needed to make a run back, we needed to make a change right then and there, and that’s what happened,” said Anitoni of his big returns. “It just came out of nowhere. We worked hard for this. This is why we condition every single day for times like this.”
The scoring barrage began with 7:08 left in the first quarter when Hudson Beers found Blake Hoban for an 86-yard touchdown.
“He plays a very important part,” Anitoni said of his junior quarterback. “We work hard with him every single day for moments like that.”
The Crusaders (2-1) got on the board when Fazon Ruth scored from 20 yards out with 1:04 remaining in the first quarter.
In the second quarter, Noah Young scored from three yards out with 5:47 left to give the Braves a 13-7 advantage. Young ended the night with 85 yards on 13 carries. But as was the case in the heavyweight slugfest, Riordan answered with a 31-yard touchdown rush from Ruth. An Aden Jackson 21-yard touchdown rush with 27.7 left gave the Crusaders a 21-13 edge headed into halftime.
The Braves knotted the game up at 21 apiece when Beers again found Hoban for a touchdown connection, this time from four yards out with 6:25 left in the third quarter. The game became tied when Beers found Josh Tichy in the back of the end zone for a successful two-point conversion.
“Another good game by Hudson you know he, again for a junior his ability to see the field and find the open receiver is very impressive,” LaRocco said of his junior quarterback. “And it’s all going to get better the more reps he sees.”
Ruth continued to run wild when he plunged into the end zone from six yards out with 3:28 left in the third quarter. But, that would end up being his last run of six-plus yards on the night as the Braves were able to buckle down and stop him in the fourth quarter. Ruth ended the night with 176 yards on 23 carries.
“Change my blitz call,” LaRocco said as to how he finally slowed Ruth down. “We started blitzing the C gap, and that’s where they kept hitting us. And I was like alright, let me just jump start there.”
This is a big win for Justin-Siena, given the fact that Riordan entered the game ranked 21st by Prep2Prep Sports.
“Anytime you beat a WCAL opponent you feel good about yourself,” LaRocco said of the significance of the victory. “You know, that’s as good of a football league as there is in Northern California. So, anytime you beat anybody from that league, you feel good about where you’re at.”
Both teams will begin league play in their respective leagues next Friday night at 7 p.m. Justin-Siena will host Casa Grande-Petaluma, while Riordan will host Serra-San Mateo.
