El Camino, Morse Open with Victories : Football: Wildcats top Point Loma in less than thrilling contest featuring two top teams.

Far from being a classic game, No. 1-ranked El Camino beat No. 2 Point Loma, 14-8, at Vista High in the season opener for both teams.

“The best part of it was it’s over! And we’re 1-0,” El Camino Coach Herb Meyer said. “It was not tremendous execution on our part.”

Oddly, because El Camino and Point Loma are the defending 2-A and 3-A section champions, respectively, this game lacked excitement.

There were few big plays, and the game wasn’t that close. It had only 15 seconds of suspense. . . . the time it took to determine who recovered Point Loma’s onside kickoff attempt with 3 minutes 49 seconds left in the game.

El Camino’s Chris Wilcox came up with it, and the Wildcats ran out the remaining time with six running plays.

El Camino tailback Mike Flanagan was the game’s most effective offensive player, gaining 96 yards rushing on 22 carries.

Said Flanagan: “I had a bad game myself. We didn’t execute like we should have. We won, and that’s what counts, but we didn’t play very well.”

Point Loma played even worse but was spared by Coach Bennie Edens.

“Our objective was to come off the field a better football team than when we started, and I think we accomplished that,” Edens said.

The Pointers managed only 112 total yards, 60 of which came in their final two plays.

After defensive tackle Carlos Saucedo intercepted a pass with 4:40 left, Pointer quarterback Ben White (four for 17, 79 yards) hit Hasani Lowe on a fly pattern for 38 yards. Tailback Rantie Harper (16 carries, 63 yards) scored on the next play, a fake reverse from 22 yards out, and Mike Logan ran in the two-point conversion to make it 14-8.

El Camino scored its touchdowns in the first half, taking advantage of Point Loma’s shoddy special teams play. Both were failed punt attempts by the Pointers.

Eight minutes into the game, Point Loma long-snapper Derik Skoglund launched a snap that sailed through the outstretched hands of punter George Lutu. By the time Lutu caught up with it, all he could do was pounce on the loose ball at the eight-yard line.

El Camino needed only one play, an eight-yard off-tackle romp by Flanagan, to make it 7-0.

Late in the second quarter, with Point Loma facing fourth-and-13 from its 27, John Moore burst up the middle and blocked Lutu’s punt. El Camino’s Buddy Brown fell on the ball in the end zone to make it 14-0 with 1:21 left in the half.

It was a miserable first half for the Pointers, who netted only seven total yards and failed to cross the 50-yard line for the sixth consecutive quarter against the Wildcats.

Last year in a 20-0 loss, Point Loma also failed to cross midfield, was held to 55 total yards and lost two fumbles that led to El Camino’s first two scores.

El Camino, meanwhile, moved the ball a little better than Meyer had envisioned in the first quarter--100 yards. But the Wildcats bogged down badly after that, finishing with 165 total yards.

“We did more dumb things than anything else,” Meyer said.

Morse 28, Rancho Buena Vista 7--In the nightcap at Vista, quarterback Ray Barnes threw for 188 yards and three touchdowns, and fullback Conan Smith finished with 160 multi-purpose yards and two touchdowns to give No. 5 Morse (2-0) its third consecutive victory over No. 4 Rancho Buena Vista (0-1).

Morse normally doesn’t win games through the air, and rarely are the Longhorns shut out for the first 47:25 of a game. That was precisely what happened in front of approximately 4,000.

Morse scored one touchdown in each quarter, and RBV didn’t score until 35 seconds remained.

Scott Johnson hauled in a 15-yard pass from Barnes to make it 7-0 with 5:26 left in the first quarter.

Smith took a screen pass and raced for 71 yards to make it 14-0 with 7:16 left in the second quarter.

Smith struck again in the third quarter, scoring on a 48-yard romp, and Johnson and Barnes hooked up again in the fourth, a 26-yard touchdown pass.

Barnes finished with seven completions in 14 attempts for 188 yards. Smith gained 84 yards on the ground, 71 on his one catch and five on a punt return.

Artemus Jones managed to put RBV on the board with 35 seconds left, carrying over from the eight-yard line.