QUARTZ HILL — The Quartz Hill football team got its first win of the season in a dominating performance on Friday night.
The Royals scored three touchdowns in the second quarter and its defense smothered Lancaster in a 34-0 Golden League victory at Quartz Hill High School.
Quartz Hill (1-4, 1-1) finished with 303 yards in total offense, while the Royals’ defense held Lancaster (1-4, 1-1) to 44 yards in total offense and forced two turnovers.
“I feel really good,” Quartz Hill senior Ashtin Dupleasis said. “I feel like our team came together and actually locked down. It was a lot of pressure on us. We treated it like a championship game because these past four weeks we went 0-4. A lot of people were down on us and didn’t believe in us.
“I knew we had to come together. My line came together. The coaches came together. We just got to keep on learning and believe in the process.”
Dupleasis led the Royals with 127 yards rushing on 13 carries and four touchdowns.
The Royals came up empty on their first two drives.
Quartz HIll senior Deven Hooper would have scored on a 30-yard run on the Royals’ opening driving, but it was nullified by a penalty.
Dupleasis scored on a 5-yard run on the Royals’ third drive, capping a seven-play, 62-yard drive.
Dupleasis scored on a 12-yard run on Quartz Hill’s next possession.
The Quartz Hill offense stalled at the Lancaster 6-yard line on the following possession and turned the ball over on downs.
But Lancaster turned the ball over and Quartz Hill senior lineman Nathen Pena recovered a fumble and gave the Royals another chance with 29 seconds remaining in the first half.
Dupleasis immediately capitalized on that opportunity, scoring on a 5-yard run, giving the Royals a 20-0 lead at halftime.
“I feel great,” Quartz Hill coach Russell Gordon said. “They played well. We still had some penalties, but we limited some. We’ll run for those on Monday, but I’m proud of the guys. They needed to get that first win. We had a hard-fought preseason, played some very good teams. Opened up with a pretty good team in league. Things didn’t go our way, so they had two choices. Do we throw in the towel and fold? Or do we come out and play our tails off? I thought we played our tails off.”
Quartz Hill didn’t lose any of its momentum in the second half, as it stopped Lancaster on its opening drive.
Quartz Hill senior Dorsey Davis blocked a Lancaster punt, recovered the ball and gave the Royals the ball at the Lancaster 16-yard line.
Quartz Hill senior quarterback Logan Hinton completed a 16-yard touchdown pass to senior Oliver Weese on the first play.
“We have to hold our heads up,” Lancaster coach Brandon Rivers said. “We have to continue to get better. Our season isn’t over. We understand this was a big game for us and we didn’t live up to the moment. We didn’t answer the bell, but that’s on us.
“We have to keep working and keep getting better. We have to trust in the process. We have to understand that things don’t always go our way.”
Quartz Hill scored on its second drive in the second half, as Dupleasis scored on a 3-yard run at the beginning of the fourth quarter to cap an eight-play, 55-yard drive.
Hinton completed 8-of-16 passes for 83 yards and senior quarterback Derrick Gordon completed 3-of-4 passes for 67 yards.
Hooper led seven wide receivers with two catches for 54 yards.
Lancaster senior quarterback Cedric SaMarion, who led the Eagles to an improbable comeback victory over Quartz Hill last year, was held to 19 yards passing on 3-for-6 completions and was sacked three times.
Quartz Hill seniors Houston Brown and Daste Lee and sophomore Toa Tuuholoaki each had a sack for the Royals.
“Two games our offense has scored 64 points and the defense played their lights out this game,” Russell Gordon said. “They pitched their first shutout and first win of the season.”
The Lancaster offense had a combined 32 carries for a total of 25 yards rushing.
Lancaster won the game last season, a wild 63-62 win over Quartz Hill. The Eagles rallied from a 27-point fourth-quarter deficit in the game.
Quartz Hill defeated Lancaster 53-6 in the 2020 spring season.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.avpress.com ’