The Arroyo Grande High School football team clearly wasn't satisfied with its performances over the last two weeks in narrow home victories over St. Joseph and Madera.

Rather than taking solace in the fact that they pulled out two gutsy wins by making several big plays in the fourth quarters of those games, several Eagles players quietly but bluntly stated after a practice last week that they would have been more confident heading into Friday's showdown against Lompoc if they had put up two blowout victories instead.

Arroyo Grande's players took that motivation, coupled it with the thought of facing off against a long-time rival program steeped in as much tradition as themselves and came out incredibly focused in last week's practices.

Nothing changed for Arroyo Grande last week except the players' increased swagger and verve, and those qualities translated to Friday's game as the Eagles crushed the Braves 39-6 at Doug Hitchen Stadium.

"Our practices this week were really intense," said senior defensive lineman Justin Fibich. "We had a lot of motivation because of the way they beat us last year. This is just sweet revenge. I think they came in here expecting to win two in a row from us, but we showed them who the top program on the Central Coast is."

The Eagles effectively put the game away in the first half, taking a 19-0 lead by playing dominating run defense and taking advantage of several Lompoc mistakes.

After Tyler DeRose scored on a 1-yard run to give Arroyo Grande a 6-0 lead, the Eagles went three-and-out on their next possession. Lompoc's Sean Carpio caught Blas Uzueta's punt at his own 5-yard line, danced around a little and was stripped of the ball by an Arroyo Grande player. Kyle Wilson fell on the ball at the 2-yard line and dived into the end zone to give the Eagles a 12-0 advantage.

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The Braves fumbled the ball away once again on the first play of their next possession at their own 14-yard line. Two plays later, Uzueta lofted a high-arcing spiral in the direction of tight end Kyle Pollock, who got loose behind safety coverage in the back of the end zone and made a gorgeous finger-tip catch, giving Arroyo Grande a 19-0 lead.

The Uzueta-to-Pollock combination worked well as the two hooked up three times for 40 yards.

"(On the touchdown), it was just a base pass play, and Blas did a great job of getting me the ball," Pollock said. "It was probably one of my better catches. The last three weeks we as a team have been feeling each other out, and now we're gelling. We wanted this game bad. We knew Lompoc had already beaten two PAC-5 teams, and we didn't want to be No. 3."

From the Braves' perspective, their stats are downright ugly: They lost four fumbles, got whistled for three personal foul penalties, were held to six total yards in the first half and didn't get their first first down until midway through the third quarter. Lompoc's only touchdown came on a Jakob Sims 1-yard run with about five minutes to go in the third quarter to pull the Braves to within 26-6.

"Because of our fumbles, it's 19-0 just like that, and it just (went downhill) from there," said Braves coach Robin Luken. "When we got down, there was some finger-pointing going on, and we had too many major penalties. You always learn every time you take a loss, and this one's going to be a character-builder for us. We have to change some habits and some attitudes, because this just isn't the way we play the game."

After the game, Pollock said one of the reasons Huss came to Arroyo Grande was for the chance to be part of the rivalry with Lompoc, so it's obvious that a special connection between the two programs does exist, one that will get stronger next season when the Braves return to the PAC-5.

"This game meant nothing to me and everything to me," Huss said. "It's not a league game, but it's important because it was Arroyo Grande vs. Lompoc. From the start, we were playing on their half of the field all night. During practice last week, it was evident that the kids were concentrating very hard, and tonight they understood what the Braves were doing and reacted."

Sept. 24, 2005