St. Bonaventure Has a G’Day

With his thick Australian accent, Adam Gray-Hayward doesn’t sound like a football player.

At least, not American football.

But he certainly appears and acts the part.

The 6-foot-3, 207-pound senior from Sydney caught seven passes for 163 yards and four touchdowns for St. Bonaventure High in a 41-14 victory over Carpinteria in a Tri-Valley League game at Ventura High.

The Seraphs (9-0, 4-0), ranked No. 2 in the Southern Section Division XI, claimed their fourth consecutive league title.

Gray-Hayward gave the Warriors (6-3, 2-1) a preview of what to expect when he scored on a 23-yard touchdown play, dragging several Carpinteria defenders for the final five yards midway through the first quarter.

He added touchdown receptions of 27 yards in the second quarter, 10 yards in the third quarter and 48 yards in the fourth quarter.

Gray-Hayward, St. Bonaventure’s career leader in touchdowns with 25, has 50 catches for 832 yards and 13 touchdowns this season.

“I can’t do it without my teammates,” Gray-Hayward said. “All of the [seniors] were here since my freshman year and I couldn’t do it without them.”

Certainly not without senior quarterback Mike Spargo, who completed 12 of 18 passes for 262 yards and four touchdowns.

Or sophomore running back Lorenzo Booker, who finished with 148 yards and a touchdown in 21 carries. Booker, the leading rusher in Ventura County, has rushed for 1,592 yards and 16 touchdowns this season.

About the only negative for the Seraphs was that somebody finally scored against them.

St. Bonaventure went into the game with four consecutive shutouts and defeated its first three league opponents by a 146-0 margin.

Carpinteria ended the streak when it scored on a four-yard quarterback keeper by Paul Hernandez early in the second quarter.

That was about the only negative for St. Bonaventure, which rolled up 406 yards and gave up 261.

“[Carpinteria is] a good football team,” Coach Jon Mack of St. Bonaventure said. “They didn’t win six games for nothing. I’m real proud of our defense.”

He was even more excited about winning another league title.

“It’s our fifth of the decade and that’s a big deal,” Mack said. “Nobody believed us when we started back in August and this was one of our goals.”

The next goal is winning a Division XI championship.

The Seraphs will have to wait a little longer for that. But they are off to a pretty good start.