Mary Star Rolls to Easy Victory : Preps: Cathedral proves to be no match for Stars in 55-0 Santa Fe League game.

League openers are supposed to be tension-filled affairs, but Mary Star High was able to cruise through its first Santa Fe League game, winning 55-0 at Cathedral Saturday afternoon.

Mary Star (3-3), which posted its first shutout of the season, held Cathedral (1-5) to 25 yards of total offense en route to a 34-0 halftime lead. After intermission, the Stars did their best to keep from running up the score, but with only 22 players on the roster, some starters were forced to stay on the field.

Mary Star was led by running backs Vince Orlando (13 carries, 151 yards, three touchdowns) and Matt Redlew (14 carries, 118 yards, one touchdown).

“The kids really enjoy games like this because there’s no pressure,” Mary Star Coach Mike Marinkovich said. “But as a coach, you don’t get a lot out of the game.

“Once we got ahead, we just wanted to make sure nobody got hurt because we had guys playing out there who have to go out and start for us next week (against Pater Noster).”

It didn’t take long for the Stars to establish a comfortable lead. An 11-yard run by Redlew started the scoring, and Mike Baker’s one-yard dive made it 14-0 after the first quarter.

In the second quarter, Nick Mariani threw touchdown passes to Brian Bologna (10 yards) and David Bozanich (11 yards) to make it 27-0. Just before halftime, Orlando scored on a three-yard run.

Mary Star fumbled away its first two second-half possessions before another three-yard run by Orlando near the end of the third quarter made it 41-0. Bozanich recovered a Cathedral fumble on the first play of the fourth quarter to set up a five-yard touchdown run by Jose Bermudez, who also kicked seven extra points.

Orlando’s 54-yard run with 3:53 left in the game ended the scoring. Mariani, who didn’t play quarterback in the second half, finished with four completions in nine attempts for 55 yards.