Recap
Santa Ana, CA — Santa Ana football collected its third victory of the season with a dominant performance against Compton College in its 2019 Homecoming game on Saturday. The Dons pulled away in the second half to defeat the Tartars 56-20 and improve to third place in the American Metro League with a record of 3-5, 2-2.
In the first quarter, Santa Ana used some creativity to score first as Donald McKinney found a lane to get into the endzone on a double-reverse run from 18 yards out.
A couple possession later, the Dons found themselves in great field position after Kyle Hurry blocked and recovered a punt to start the Santa Ana drive at the Tartar 11 yard line. A nine yard rush from quarterback Cross Faletoi followed by a four yard touchdown run from Cole Nequette made it a 14-0 game at the 1:36 mark in the first.
Compton answered with a 48 yard touchdown drive that ended with a one yard plunge by Damien Wright. They converted the two point conversion to cut the lead to 6 at 14-8.
The touchdown got Compton back in the game but they couldn't find a way to slow down Santa Ana as Faletoi kept the Don offense looking sharp, throwing two touchdowns in the half to push the lead to 28-8 by halftime.
Santa Ana started the second half with a three and out stop and a 46 yard touchdown drive that was capped with a 28 yard Faletoi to Joshua Rice go-route, giving the Dons a 35-8 point advantage.
By the fourth quarter, the Dons pushed the lead to 56-8 before pulling most of their starters as the win was secured.
The Dons finished with 322 yards of total offense while only allowing 20 points and 245 yards in their best defensive performance of the season.
Kenny Phillips had another impactful game at linebacker with 11 tackles, a sack and a fumble recovery while Giovanni Kizer got back to wreaking havoc in the backfield, posting seven tackles, a sack and a forced fumble.