Hart Answers Wake-Up Call in 35-6 Rout of San Fernando

Maybe San Fernando High quarterback Keijuan Douglas was teasing, or maybe he was hit too many times in Friday’s 35-6 loss to Southern Section power Hart at San Fernando.

Douglas, whose mad scrambling provided most of the offense the Tigers could muster, said he was pleased with his team’s performance. This is despite San Fernando yielding 461 yards to Hart’s run-and-shoot offense, led by running back Ted Iacenda’s 221 yards rushing and 93 receiving.

“We played a good game,” Douglas said. “We kind of shut down Iacenda.”

Douglas was writhing in pain with an ankle injury on the Hart six-yard line as the final gun sounded, the result of a 17-yard scamper and a last-ditch effort to get into the end zone.

“But [Hart] is a good team,” he said. “They’re ranked in the state. We’ve got a lot of guys on the team that ain’t played football before.”

Hart, which finished 13-1 and lost in the Division II championship game last year, will gladly accept any teasing from Douglas, a 5-foot-8 senior. The Indians (1-1), after a 38-33 loss to Hawaii St. Louis in Honolulu last week, committed four turnovers. Teasing or not, San Fernando took a 6-0 lead on the first play of the game.

Running back Brandon Campbell (nine carries, 109 yards) took a pitch right, cut upfield and raced 80 yards without being touched.

But then the Tigers (0-1) teetered. They committed three turnovers, were penalized 12 times for 90 yards and had no passing game. After Campbell’s touchdown, Douglas’ legs were San Fernando’s only weapons. He literally scrambled for 136 yards in 16 carries, most coming on broken plays.

The San Fernando defense hit hard, forcing two fumbles by Iacenda and knocking Hart quarterback Steve McKeon (12 for 20 passing for 268 yards) out of the game for one play. But the Tigers often couldn’t stop Iacenda (19 rushes for 221 rushing, five receptions for 39 yards), who entered his senior season with 61 touchdowns and has added four the past two weeks.

“We needed a win,” McKeon said, “but we need to become more consistent on our drives. San Fernando came out in a different defense than we expected. We had to find stuff to do against that.”

On the second play of its first drive, Hart answered San Fernando’s score with a shovel pass to Iacenda. The 6-1, 220-pound senior raced 68 yards for a touchdown. Iacenda bolted 16 yards up the middle to cap a seven-play, 97-yard drive to make it 14-6 late in the first quarter.

Iacenda scored on a seven-yard run to make it 20-7 early in the second quarter. The Indians made it 28-6 at halftime, after McKeon hit J.B. Nelson with a 14-yard touchdown pass. Nelson, who had two catches for 57 yards, scored Hart’s final touchdown on a 43-yarder.