St. Bonaventure football hands Birmingham its first loss

LAKE BALBOA — Birmingham football suffered its first loss of the season Friday night as St. Bonaventure ran to a 42-9 victory.

St. Bonaventure scored on all four of its drives in the first half and also had an interception returned by Devin Granillo for 31 yards for a touchdown to take a 35-6 halftime lead. St. Bonaventure’s starting running back Jayce Franco exited the game early with an injury, but the Seraphs offense did not skip a beat with Jeremiah Barrios getting the load of the carries in Franco’s absence.

Barrios finished the game with 14 carries for 123 yards. Quarterback Jaxson Carper finished the game 8 of 12 for 153 yards with two touchdown passes and also a touchdown run.

“It feels amazing to come out here and get the win and improve from scoring 19 points last week,” Carper said. “Our team showed off the next man up mentality when Jayce went out and everyone’s ready at all times.”

Freshman Tony Dargan had two touchdown runs on only five touches in the game for St. Bonaventure (2-0). Walter Moore finished the game with two catches for 56 yards and had a 53-yard touchdown in the opening drive for St. Bonaventure.

“I’m always ready to get the ball whenever my team needs,” Barrios said. “We definitely started off slow last week but today I feel like we played to our full potential and did everything we needed to do.”

After his strong performance in the season-opening win against Hart, Birmingham quarterback Kevin Hawkins struggled to get going against the strong Seraphs defense before exiting the game in the third quarter with an injury.

Hawkins finished the game 5 of 12 for 70 yards and had 13 carries for 31 yards with a rushing touchdown and an interception. Paul Turner had a strong outing at receiver for the Patriots, finishing with four catches for 108 yards. Eddy Vigueras also hit a 22-yard field goal after a long Birmingham drive in the second half.

The Seraphs have gotten off to a strong start under first-year head coach and former Los Angeles Ram safety Troy Hill. Hill also played for St. Bonaventure before going on to play at Oregon for college.

“I think it was an all-around good team win, I think we were able to execute a lot better than we did last week,” Hill said. “I’m enjoying the process of being a high school coach and just to be able to come back and watch these kids develop and see the growth.”

Birmingham will look to bounce back and improve to 2-1 next week at Moorpark.