The Point Loma High School (PLHS) football team buzzed to a victory Oct. 23, stinging host University City High School 28-5 in a Western League match that also served as the Centurions\u2019 Homecoming.??But it was the Pointers who were nearly stung \u2014 literally \u2014 as a nest of ground-burrowing yellowjackets was discovered before game time, residing below the one-yard line at the stadium\u2019s east end. The nest was not exterminated until halftime and the insects flew freely across the playing surface throughout the game. The victory upped the Pointers\u2019 season record to 4-3 (1-1 in Western League). The Centurions dropped to 0-7 (0-2). \u00a0Playing only their second game since the return of offensive starters Keegan Fitzgerald (QB) and Leslie Rogers (RB), the Dogs struggled through much of the first half. Morris Mathews, however, scored on a 5-yard, second-quarter run to give Point Loma a 7-0 halftime lead. \u00a0“We made some offensive adjustments at halftime,” said Pointer head coach Mike Hastings. “Our offensive line, I thought, stepped up, took it a little personal and in the second half started to get off the ball and moved (their man) a little bit more.” The Pointers scored three touchdowns in the third quarter. First it was the team\u2019s scoring leader, Zach Gemmill, jamming the final two yards to up the lead to 14-0. Next, it was Fitzgerald passing to Davis Callejon in the left corner of the end zone from five yards after the same combination connected on a 28-yard play to set up the score. \u00a0Finally, senior Emilio Diaz lugged the pigskin in from two yards out to finish the Pointers\u2019 scoring. \u00a0“We had a lot of good things we can build on,” Hastings said. Defensively, the Centurions were held without a first down running or passing until midway through the third frame. Led again by PLHS\u2019 team tackling and sacks leader Anthony Joyner, Sean Stepina, Mike Montesano, Eric Bueno, Curtis Deitz, Michael Boxell, Christian Hayward (suffering from the flu), Diaz and Callejon, the Centurions were unable to score until the last two minutes of the game. \u00a0First, a Pointer punter\u2019s knee touched down in the end zone while attempting to field a low snap. The resulting safety and a field goal with one second left in the game provided the final score. \u00a0“I thought our defense played exceptionally well all day. Except for that late field goal against our second unit, (we) shut them out,” Hastings said. \u00a0Offensively, Fitzgerald completed 4 of 11 passes for 105 yards and ran for another 36. Three of his passes were caught by Callejon for 88 yards, with the longest picking up 55 yards. \u00a0Rogers ran 15 times for 62 yards to lead the ground game, with Mathews (37 yards) and Gemmill (30 yards) also turning in good performances. Another bright spot for the Pointers was the strong foot of sophomore kicker Ruben Diaz. On several kickoffs, Diaz put the ball into the end zone for touchbacks and he also was perfect on four extra point kicks. \u00a0“It feels good to get back, getting a win again,” Hastings said. \u00a0Next up for the Dogs is a crucial home league game Friday, Oct. 30 against rival Serra. Both teams appear evenly matched, although the Conquistadors sport a 5-2 (2-0 in league) record. Serra is led offensively by senior running back Brandon Johnson (122 yards per game) and defensively by junior defensive back Nick Kelly (12 tackles per game). Kickoff at Bennie Edens Field is set for 3 p.m.?\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Point Loma High School (PLHS) football team buzzed to a victory Oct. 23, stinging host University City High School 28-5 in a Western League match that also served as the Centurions\u2019 Homecoming.??But it was the Pointers who were nearly stung \u2014 literally \u2014 as a nest of ground-burrowing yellowjackets was discovered before game time, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":257254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Pointers take UC High to task, 28-5","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11561,11553,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-peninsula-beacon","category-sports","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}