Rancho Alamitos Rips Through Another Foe

There ought to be a law against what the Rancho Alamitos High football team is doing to its opponents this season.

The Vaqueros unleashed their offense with gusto Friday night to defeat Garden Grove, 43-13, in a Garden Grove League opener in front of 3,000 at Garden Grove High.

It was the fourth time this season the Vaqueros (3-1, 1-0) have scored 30 or more points in a game and the second time they have surpassed 40 points. They have allowed 29 points in four games.

However, Rancho Alamitos did its damage Friday with a slightly different offensive plan than usual. The Vaqueros went to the passing game more often than they had in any of their previous games this season, with quarterback Marshall Brown throwing for 114 yards and one touchdown.

That’s not to say the Vaqueros, ranked fourth in the county, abandoned their trademark veer attack.

Tailback Jeff Byrd led all rushers with 119 yards in 11 carries and scored three touchdowns--one on an interception return--and fullback Leon Vickers ran for 78 yards in 10 carries. The Vaqueros simply took advantage of Garden Grove’s zealousness in protecting against the run.

Rancho Alamitos pretty much put away the Argonauts (2-2, 0-1), the defending league champions, in the first quarter with a 17-0 blitz.

The Vaqueros intercepted three Brian Schneider passes in the first quarter--Schneider was intercepted five times--two of them by safety Randy Maldonado, and turned them all into points.

“We had some misreads and a couple of misfires,” Garden Grove Coach Jeff Buenafe said. “You can’t get off to a bad start against a team like this.”

Junior kicker Tony Luce opened the scoring with a 43-yard field goal midway through the opening quarter and Rancho Alamitos kept pouring it on from there.

Forty-four seconds after the field goal, Byrd made his interception and ran it 18 yards for the touchdown. He scored again on a one-yard run late in the period.

The Vaqueros then scored on a 27-yard pass play from Brown to Kevin Allen, a 54-yard run by Byrd, a bad snap in punting formation recovered by Randy Maldonado in the end zone and a two-yard run by Maldonado to secure the victory.