SANTA FE SPRINGS – After losing its Angelus League title game in heartbreaking fashion last week to Cathedral, the St. Paul football team looked to put its deflating loss behind as it took on Thousand Oaks in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 4 playoffs on Friday. Instead, the Swordsmen succumbed to another gut-wrenching loss, falling to Thousand Oaks 14-10 after Swordsmen running back Joseph Laffere was tackled five yards short of the game winning touchdown as time expired.
Thousand Oaks advances to take on El Modena in next week’s quarterfinals. St. Paul head coach Mike Moschetti said to blame him for the loss.
“We had a chance, it’s something you work on, you run your two minute drill everyday,” Moschetti said. “Something like that shouldn’t happen, but again that falls on me as a head coach.” Swordsmen quarterback Gabriel Castaneda ran for a team-high 76 yards and completed 11 of 28 passes for 123 yards.
Moschetti commended his quarterback’s effort despite facing some injuries throughout the game. “Our quarterback was banged up, he battled through it and made plays when he had to,” Moschetti said. Thousand Oaks limited St.
Paul’s star running back Marley Luatua to just 34 yards, though Luatua scored the Swordsmen’s only touchdown. It couldn’t have started worse for the Swordsmen on offense. St.
Paul had back-to-back three and outs as the Swordsmen had no answers for what Thousand Oaks was doing defensively. “(We) played wel.