Eagles end LPL season on high note

Templeton's football team missed being the top Los Padres League seed for the playoffs by five points.

The Eagles, with a couple of tough home losses and a bad number in the pre-season draw, also missed the playoffs.

They didn't let that hard fact deter them from doing the job Friday night. Templeton took advantage of a sizable size advantage up front and pounded out a 49-3 rout of Santa Maria at the Saints' Dave Boyd Field in a season finale

Casey Smith ran for 118 yards and scored four touchdowns. Linemen Jeff Walsh and Justin Cutler and linebacker Sean McCaffrey led the charge as the Eagles held the Saints (0-7, 2-8-0) to 109 yards of total offense.

Santa Maria had 26 yards rushing. Edson Martinez kicked a 30-yard field goal with 10:49 left to play for the Saints' points. Ryan Duran's 46-yard kickoff return to Templeton's 49 set up the score.

The Eagles (4-3, 7-3-0) tied Nipomo and Pioneer Valley for third place. Four LPL teams make it to the post-season. Templeton is out by literally the luck of the draw.

Nipomo, Pioneer Valley and Templeton were all 1-1 against each other, rendering that tiebreaker moot. They beat, and lost to, the same teams in the rest of the league, so that tiebreaker was useless too.

That left it to the pre-season draw every team in the league took part in to decide things. According to one LPL coach, Nipomo drew number two, Pioneer Valley number five and Templeton number seven. That left Nipomo as the third seed, Pioneer Valley the fourth and Templeton out of luck.

“We were five points away from the top seed and to realize that, and know you're not going (to the playoffs) no matter what you do, hey, that's tough,” said Templeton coach Don Crow.

“The boys came out and did a good job.” Lack of a kicking game against St. Joseph - the Eagles made no extra points and missed field goal tries of 9 and 22 yards in a 21-20 overtime loss - and a 17-0 whitewash by Pioneer Valley, both at Templeton, doomed the Eagles' playoff hopes.

“Things didn't go our way this season,” said Crow. “There's always next season.”

Meanwhile, first-year Santa Maria coach Raul Castillo had no complaints about his outmanned but game squad.

“We came out to play every Friday night, play hard, maybe make some people scratch their heads,” Castillo said.

“A lot of people judge how successful you are by the scoreboard, how many wins or losses you have. We told the boys from the start of the season that we weren't going to do that.

“We'll judge how they've done when they're 24, 25 years old, when they've gone to college, tech school, owning their own businesses, teaching. This has helped team them discipline.

“The kids, and the parents too, have been fantastic,” said Castillo. “You're talking about a group of players, most of whom had never played varsity football,” before this year.

Defensive backs Aaron Tejada and Robert Rodriguez, along with linebacker Steven Grigg, helped the Saints defense give a good account of itself in the first half.

After the Eagles drove 70 yards on nine plays for a score on their first possession, the Saints' resistance on defense stiffened. Templeton took advantage of two personal fouls against the Saints on one second-quarter touchdown drive and field position that started on the Saints 33 on another. The score was 21-0 at halftime.

Santa Maria recovered Templeton quarterback Casey Bogart's fumble at the Saints 10 on the first possession of the second half, but things unraveled for them shortly thereafter.

Someone hit Duran, and Walsh recovered Duran's fumble at Santa Maria's 14. Smith scored on the next play. Reserve quarterback Tyler Jones' 26-yard pass to Tyler Bogart set up Smith's three-yard touchdown run. Jones connected with Tyler Bogart for an 18-yard touchdown pass shortly thereafter.

The game was the last on venerable Dave Boyd Field. Santa Maria Athletic Director Ralph Baldiviez said work will begin Tuesday on an overhaul of Santa Maria's stadium.

Thanks to a school bond passed two years ago, Baldiviez said, Santa Maria will get a football field with artificial turf similar to Pioneer Valley's and Righetti's, as well as an all-weather track similar to the ones at those schools.

“We're going to tear out the home bleachers and make them similar to Pioneer Valley's,” said Baldiviez. “We'll refurbish the bleachers on the visitor's side.”

November 10, 2007