A test that never came to pass

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I realized after the game between Dominguez and Gahr that I must have been pretty much the only one there -- or so it seemed, outside of any shell-shocked Gladiators -- who was a bit surprised by the Dons’ near-total domination in their 49-0 victory in a San Gabriel Valley League opener Friday night at Dominguez.

It wasn’t so much that they won, of course. The Dons are ranked No. 17 in the Southland by The Times, after all.

But they manhandled Gahr, winning much more handily and easily than I, at least, was expecting.

Dominguez, coming off a bye week, benefited from extra preparation and practices focused primarily on stopping Gahr’s previously effective passing game, and Coach Keith Donerson attributed the strong performance to a renewed focus and intensity brought on by the arrival of league play.

‘They’re a great team. We just played at a little different level tonight,’ Donerson said. ‘It’s league now, and to us, it’s like the playoffs. We don’t want to lose a game from here on out.’

If the Dons (4-2, 1-0) play the way they did against the Gladiators (4-2, 0-1), they probably won’t.

‘I knew we were going to be more physical than they were from the start,’ said defensive backs Coach Martin French, whose secondary was expected to get a test against Gahr quarterback Corey Nielsen, the state passing leader with an average of nearly 384 yards a game coming in.

Instead, the Dons’ defensive backs helped turn the game into, well, no contest.

‘We knew that the quarterback hadn’t been blitzed, we knew that their receivers hadn’t been jammed yet,’ French said. ‘So we knew that if we played our game, we could control things. The score, the way it ended, was not shocking at all. We expected it.’

- Lauren Peterson