No. 2 St. John Bosco cleans up nicely in victory over No. 5 JSerra

One of the main story lines to come out of last week’s slate of high school football games was the potential vulnerability of No. 2-ranked Bellflower St. John Bosco after it barely hung on against Anaheim Servite for a one-point victory.

Before Friday night’s road game against San Juan Capistrano JSerra, Braves head coach Jason Negro acknowledged that his team made its share of errors in that game and had plenty of things to clean up to avoid an upset at the hands of the Lions.

St. John Bosco got off to a bit of a shaky start in its second Trinity League game, allowing a touchdown within the first 25 seconds of the game, but settled down quickly to roll JSerra 49-10 to remain undefeated heading into next week’s matchup against Orange Lutheran.

“There was some order restored back into the galaxy tonight,” Negro joked after his team’s victory. “It was a weird night last Friday, but overall, I’m very pleased with the way we played tonight.”

Negro had plenty to be pleased about with the play of his quarterback, D.J. Uiagalelei.

The Clemson-bound senior made dynamic plays with his arm and his legs, passing for 251 yards and three touchdowns and adding 109 yards rushing and three more scores on the ground.

“The three rushing touchdowns sound pretty good,” Uiagalelei said. “We executed really well tonight. We had a really good week of practice because everyone was mad about what happened [against Servite] and we came out and played loose and we played clean.”

No. 5 JSerra (5-2, 1-1) put a bit of a scare into Bosco in the opening moments of the game as Sammy Green took the opening kickoff back 86 yards to set up a 13-yard touchdown pass from General Booty to Chris Street with only 25 seconds ticked off the clock.

St. John Bosco (6-0, 2-0) evened the score with a touchdown on its first offensive possession as Uiagalelei broke off an impressive 73-yard touchdown run in which he made two JSerra defenders miss tackles with jukes in the open field.

“That was pretty tight,” Uiagalelei said. “I don’t run that much, so I was pretty gassed at the end. I was just hoping I didn’t get caught at the one-yard line.”

Uiagalelei didn’t get caught and the Braves raced to halftime, scoring on each of their first two possessions of the second quarter, first on a nine-yard touchdown run up the middle from Uiagalelei and then on a 46-yard pass from Uiagalelei to Logan Loya, giving the Braves a 21-7 lead with 8:49 left in the opening half.

JSerra broke up St. John Bosco’s rhythm on a 31-yard field goal from Anthony Andrioli, which helped JSerra cut the Braves lead to 21-10 at the break.

St. John Bosco found the end zone on all four of its second-half possessions.