Santa Margarita Makes Its Point in Victory

All Jim Hartigan wanted was a victory. It didn’t matter if it was by one point at the final gun or whether it was ugly to the bone.

The Santa Margarita coach wanted his player to beat a good team and gain some credibility to go along with that No. 7 ranking in the Orange County poll.

Hartigan’s team got that victory--and more. Santa Margarita beat Fountain Valley, 31-0, in front of about 2,500 Friday at Saddleback College.

Hartigan--and Santa Margarita (4-1)--got a 31-point victory over a team that was ranked 10th in the county one week ago.

Yes, there was a dab of ugly to it--11 penalties for 131 yards. But the rest looked like Cindy Crawford.

Billy Newman rushed 19 times for 227 yards and one touchdown, and scored a second time on a punt return of 60 yards, which broke Matt Nickels’ one-year old school record of 49 yards.

Quarterback Carson Palmer completed six of 11 passes for 137 yards--22.9 per completion--and one touchdown, which came on third and 31 from the Barons’ 36-yard-line.

The defense limited Fountain Valley (3-2), which had averaged 28.8 points per game, to 193 yards--129 which came in a first-half defensive struggle.

“Our run defense and pass defense was awesome,” Hartigan said. “We wanted a win against a good football team, and Fountain Valley is a very good football team. They’re big and they’re physical and they’ve beaten us two years in a row. We proved tonight we could stop a good football team and generate some things offensively ourselves.”

Fountain Valley, coming off a 28-17 loss to Servite last week, was unable to stop the Eagles in the second half, and were certainly unable to prevent them from capitalizing on Baron mistakes.

Fountain Valley’s only real breakdown in the first half was letting John Minardi out-jump two defensive backs in the end zone on that third-and-31 play midway into the second quarter.

The Eagles rushed for only 67 yards in the first half, but gained 231 in the second. Newman’s runs of 18, 33 and 20 yards set up Nick Sparks’ 37-yard field goal with 2:29 left in the third quarter, and Newman’s 18-yard touchdown run less than a minute later immediately followed Garrett Thompson’s fumble recovery for a 17-0 lead.

It got worse for Fountain Valley, because Newman’s punt return for a touchdown ended the quarter and gave the Eagles a 24-0 advantage.

Newman wasn’t through. His 68-yard run set up Damien Minna’s three-yard scoring run in the fourth.