Jalen Greene shrugged off a shaky start Friday night to lead Serra's football team to its most prolific scoring game in school history.
Greene had 240 total yards (147 passing, 93 rushing), along with three rushing touchdowns and one passing TD, to lead Serra to a 70-21 Mission League win at Harvard-Westlake.
Greene and Ronnie Vaughn (126 yards and two TDs on 14 carries) led a dominant Serra rushing attack to 324 yards on 33 carries, but it wasn't without a few hiccups in the early going.
Serra's first three possessions consisted of a 3-and-out, an Anterio Bateman lost fumble and a Jalen Greene interception that Harvard-Westlake (5-4) capitalized on to jump out to an early 7-0 lead.
Greene tied the game at the end of the first quarter with a 29-yard TD run and Serra (7-2, 4-0) scored on every possession for the remainder of the game.
"I love that Jalen has such a short memory on the field," Serra coach Scott Altenberg said. "He threw a terrible interception, but put it behind him and made some big plays."
Serra pulled away with a third-quarter scoring flurry that Raymond Ford got started with an 81-yard punt return touchdown with about nine minutes left in the quarter.
On Serra's next possession, Ronnie Vaughn scored on a 9-yard TD run with 4:45 left and the Cavaliers scored three more times in the final four minutes of the quarter, including a 56-yard touchdown run by Greene and a 15-yard run by Vaughn.
"We all had to forget about that slow start, I had some passes I was rushing and stuff like that," Greene said.
Serra linebacker Ardis Perez saw his first action since suffering a serious spinal injury in last season's CIF Southern Section playoff semifinal against Paso Robles.
Perez was in on six defensive series and recorded five tackles.
"It felt great, like I never had the surgery," Perez said. "I thought I played well for my first game back."
Serra reached 70 points on Joshua Thomas' 85-yard interception return with three minutes left in the game.
Altenberg and Serra's assistant coaches couldn't recall a 70-point game in the school's history, although it wasn't an accomplishment they were proud of.
"That's not the way we do things, we pride ourselves on not running up the score," Altenberg said. "We would never do that intentionally and the score doesn't indicate how close the game was in the third quarter."
Serra might go into next week's showdown against Chaminade (8-1, 4-0) without Bateman, who left Friday's game early with an ankle injury.
Greene had 240 total yards (147 passing, 93 rushing), along with three rushing touchdowns and one passing TD, to lead Serra to a 70-21 Mission League win at Harvard-Westlake.
Greene and Ronnie Vaughn (126 yards and two TDs on 14 carries) led a dominant Serra rushing attack to 324 yards on 33 carries, but it wasn't without a few hiccups in the early going.
Serra's first three possessions consisted of a 3-and-out, an Anterio Bateman lost fumble and a Jalen Greene interception that Harvard-Westlake (5-4) capitalized on to jump out to an early 7-0 lead.
Greene tied the game at the end of the first quarter with a 29-yard TD run and Serra (7-2, 4-0) scored on every possession for the remainder of the game.
"I love that Jalen has such a short memory on the field," Serra coach Scott Altenberg said. "He threw a terrible interception, but put it behind him and made some big plays."
Serra pulled away with a third-quarter scoring flurry that Raymond Ford got started with an 81-yard punt return touchdown with about nine minutes left in the quarter.
On Serra's next possession, Ronnie Vaughn scored on a 9-yard TD run with 4:45 left and the Cavaliers scored three more times in the final four minutes of the quarter, including a 56-yard touchdown run by Greene and a 15-yard run by Vaughn.
"We all had to forget about that slow start, I had some passes I was rushing and stuff like that," Greene said.
Serra linebacker Ardis Perez saw his first action since suffering a serious spinal injury in last season's CIF Southern Section playoff semifinal against Paso Robles.
Perez was in on six defensive series and recorded five tackles.
"It felt great, like I never had the surgery," Perez said. "I thought I played well for my first game back."
Serra reached 70 points on Joshua Thomas' 85-yard interception return with three minutes left in the game.
Altenberg and Serra's assistant coaches couldn't recall a 70-point game in the school's history, although it wasn't an accomplishment they were proud of.
"That's not the way we do things, we pride ourselves on not running up the score," Altenberg said. "We would never do that intentionally and the score doesn't indicate how close the game was in the third quarter."
Serra might go into next week's showdown against Chaminade (8-1, 4-0) without Bateman, who left Friday's game early with an ankle injury.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/preps/ci_19271190
Source: Matt Lopez, Correspondent, Daily Breeze