KING CITY — A potent and prepared Carmel Padre football team ruined the league title hopes of King City High on Saturday, smashing the Mustangs 59-12 in their Mission Trail Athletic League showdown. The Padres have averaged 49 points in the last three victories and put on an offensive clinic on Senior Day.
“Carmel has a really good coaching staff and had two weeks to prepare for us,” said King City head coach Mac Villanueva. “They (Padres), exploited us right from the start and there was not much we could do when they got going offensively. That first quarter when they went ahead by three scores just seemed like the longest quarter of football for me. We looked to have some opportunities to make something happen but then we turned the ball over. Carmel did everything right and threw us off our game plan.”
After the Padres scored the first touchdown on a 17-yard run by Nick Krueger the Mustangs move the football down the field with a 32-yard pass play from Luis Luna to Clay Barbree to reach the Padre 32 yard line.
Luna found Barbree for another five yard pass but the drive ended on an incomplete pass, a blocked pass, and a pair of quarterback sacks that turned the ball over to Carmel.
The Padres then used a drive to reach the King City eight-yard line and complete the offensive series with an eight-yard touchdown run by Dakota Mornhinweg. An interception by Carmel linebacker Zac DeZee off a Luna pass got the ball back to the Padres. Quarterback Kai Lee then tossed a 28-yard touchdown pass to Rashaan Ward to take a 21-0 lead. Another pick by DeZee gave the host team good field position and the Padres wasted little time as Lee threw a 45-yard touchdown pass to Ward to give Carmel a 28-0 advantage.
Place kicker Zach Rossi stretched the lead to 31-0 with 4:41 left in the half and Carmel added one other score to take a 38-0 lead into the halftime intermission. In the third quarter King City’s Alex Villasenor scored on a scoop and score play on a fumble recovery to cut the lead to 38-6 but the Padres responded with a touchdown run by Lee to push the lead to 45-6. King City completed its scoring with a touchdown by running back and Carmel scored one last time with a run by Mornhiweg for the final 52-12 score.
The Mustangs had six turnovers in the game including four interceptions.
Luna finished the contest with a 15 of 36 passing performance. Barbree led King City in receiving with seven receptions for 90-yards; Luis Briseno had two receptions for 25-yards; Joseph Salcido had two receptions for 52 yards; and Isa Gonzales had two receptions for 15 yards. Perez led King City in rushing with four rushes for 18 yards and a touchdown; Luna for nine yards on seven rushes; Matt Morales ran for 15 yards on five carries; Barbree had one rush for eight yards; and Ponch Jimenez had one yard on one carry.
King City finished the Mission Trail Athletic League (Mission Division), at 4-2 and 5-4 overall with a non-league game to play on Friday against the visiting Greenfield Bruins. Greenfield defeated Soquel last Friday 50-48 to improve to 2-4 in the MTAL (Coastal Division), and 3-6 overall. Before kickoff the Mustangs will celebrate Senior Night.
“We will have to petition to get into the playoffs now after the loss,” said Coach Villanueva. “It will be up to CCS (Central Coast Section) if we get in or not. This week we have to beat Greenfield and hope that our 6-4 record will be good enough to qualify for a playoff game.”
In the JV contest the King City Broncos were shutout 49-0 by the Carmel Padre JV team.
