La Villa opens with win

LA VILLA — Ricky Cantu was certainly ready for the season to start.

The La Villa sophomore accounted for 205 all-purpose yards as the Cardinals opened the 2009 campaign with a 39-7 win over the San Benito junior varsity on Thursday night.

Cantu, one half of La Villa’s dual threat at quarterback, ran for three scores and threw another as the Cards churned out 515 total yards.

“He’s a player,” La Villa head coach Eugene Garza said of Cantu. “He can run the football.”

La Villa (1-0) had the Greyhounds on their heels as they hit for several big plays. However miscues killed several Cardinal drives.

“We had too many turnovers and penalties,” Garza said. “It’s those simple things that we need to work on.”

The Cards struck first when Cantu ran in from 13 yards out and then went up 12-0 when Cantu hit Rodger Perez on a 69-yard bomb with 3:30 left in the first. Both PATs were botched.

La Villa extended the lead to 18-0 on Cantu’s four-yard dash in the second.

The ’Hounds’ only points came when Nathaniel Aguirre hit L.J. Garcia on a nice 14-yard pass. The PAT closed it to 18-7 with 2:12 left in the first half.

“They had good size,” Garza said of San Benito. “We’re not gonna face a team that big in our district.”

In the third, Cantu was at it again.

The speedster took off for a 46-yard jaunt and scored the two-point conversion on a bad snap to put the Cards up 26-7.

The Cards’ other QB, A.J. Garza (13-for-21, 213 yards) got in on the festivities when he connected with Alex Galvez (6 catches, 98 yards) on a 31-yard scoring strike on the last play of the third quarter.

Later, J.C. Carreon was rewarded for some tough running when he scored on a 14-yarder to put it away at 39-7.

Armando Garza covers sub-4A football for Valley Freedom Newspapers.