St. Francis football not able to fight way back against Westlake

The St. Francis High football team has proven it can win close games thus far this season.

In the first two weeks of the campaign, the Golden Knights earned a two-point nonleague win against Mira Costa and had to go to overtime to topple Damien.

In its third game Friday evening against Westlake, St. Francis fell behind in the second half and this time couldn’t recover, suffering a 41-35 nonleague loss at home.

Bryson Reeves scored three touchdowns for the Goldan Knights, but it wasn’t enough.

The Golden Knights (2-1) scored two touchdowns in the second quarter to build a 21-14 lead. Reeves scored on a four-yard run in the first quarter and caught a 14-yard touchdown pass from Jack Clougherty in the second quarter.

Kevin Armstead led St. Francis on the ground as he gained 184 yards in 22 carries with two touchdowns. Armstead bolted 22 yards for a touchdown with 1:27 seconds left in the second quarter.

Westlake (1-3) freshman running Dane Reed caught a 10-yard touchdown pass from Marco Siderman as time expired in the first half to tie the score at 21.

“The line was opening big holes and made it easy for me. We have to be better in the red zone but we have a chip on our shoulder & we’ll be unstoppable,” Armstead said.

Reeves caught six passes for 116 yards and two touchdowns. Clougherty completed 11 out of 25 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns.

Siderman completed 13 of 28 passes for 231 yards and two touchdowns. Siderman also ran for two touchdowns. Reed carried 21 times for 130 yards and Carson Kuhl caught seven passes for 138 yards for the Warriors.

St. Francis committed two turnovers in the first 1:04 of the third quarter which led to two Warrior defensive touchdowns. Mescach Tili recovered a fumble in the end zone after a snap over Clougherty’s head. On the next play for St. Francis, Tili intercepted a pass and returned it 20 yards for a touchdown.

With the touchdown at the end of the half, Westlake scored three times in 1:04 from which St. Francis could not recover.

“Some of the mistakes were tough to overcome. We have some young players in key positions so we will continue to get better,” St. Francis coach Jim Bonds said.”

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