Santa Clarita Christian Cardinals football burst into the 2024 season with an impressive win over the visiting Santa Clara Saints.
The Cardinals’ dominant run game and defensive pressure rattled the Saints, and led to a 43-28 win on Saturday at Canyon High School.
SCCS hammered Santa Clara on the ground with one huge run after another along with all six scores coming via the rush.
Cards quarterback Cayden Rappleye totaled 191 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns while Jonathan Boelter added 75 yards on 13 carries with one TD. Senior Wyatt Shields, who typically plays receiver, totaled 50 yards and a pair of touchdowns on just three touches.
“Anytime you can win the game running the ball, that’s a coach’s dream,” said SCCS coach Austin Fry. “Then anytime you can pass the ball, and win the game with your run game, it’s exciting.”
SCCS never trailed in the contest and hit its stride in the second quarter, in which the team found the end zone four times. The Cards led 35-8 at halftime, as the defense dominated and kept the offense on the field with six sacks, a fumble recovery and an interception.
Boelter shined on both sides of the field as he registered a hat trick of defensive sacks.
“I really like our offense, so this isn’t a slight to them, but I think our strong point is our defense,” Fry said. “I think our D-line was very prepared, even when we weren’t totally sure what we were going to see, and they were very prepared.”
Caleb Shaffer also added a sack, two tackles for a loss and recovered the fumble. Mason Rappleye and Jonathan Babikan added one sack each for the Cardinals.
The Saints found a new life as sophomore quarterback Jayden Ramirez found his rhythm and got the offense rolling. Santa Clara never made it a one-score game but showed it can adjust on the fly and move the football.
SCCS struggled with some penalties but for Fry, it wasn’t anything out of hand or anything crazier than a coach would expect in its opener, especially on a team with nearly 20 underclassmen.
The Cardinals will enter Heritage League play early with little time to prepare. SCCS will take on Milken on Thursday and will be playing for its third straight win over the Wildcats.
“(Milken’s) a similar team to Santa Clara in terms of the offense they run,” Fry said. “We can polish some things from last week against a similar defensive scheme … It’s a league game so we’re taking it seriously. But it’s nice to play a league team because you kind of know what you’re going to get.”
The Cards host the Wildcats on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Hart High School.
