Kennedy Takes Advantage of Turnovers, Beats Santiago

With a full moon over the Western High field Thursday, Kennedy Coach Mitch Olson called the Irish’s 27-0 victory over Santiago in the Garden Grove League opener “weird.”

“There were a lot of mistakes,” he said. “The game was a little weird.”

Kennedy (3-1, 1-0 in league) used two fake punts and had two touchdowns set up by turnovers before the teams played the final 21 minutes with mostly second and third stringers.

Santiago (0-4, 0-1) squandered a scoring opportunity on its first possession, driving 60 yards in six plays before fumbling. Kennedy’s Dan Martineau recovered.

Kennedy struck quickly. Darrin Martineau caught a Chris Clark pass on the Irish 35 and ran up the right sideline for a touchdown.

Charlie Marino scored his first of three touchdowns with 29 seconds remaining in the first quarter on a 16-yard run up the middle. Clark’s conversion increased the Kennedy lead to 14-0.

Marino scored on runs of 14 yards with 9:38 left in the third quarter and 33 yards with 9:12 left in the quarter to complete the scoring. The second touchdown was set up on a fumble recovery by Don Ballares.

Kennedy recovered five of eight Santiago fumbles and intercepted two passes.

Clark completed seven of 11 passes for 179 yards.

Kennedy played without injured Wes Morris, the team’s leading receiver.