The St. Vincent Mustangs are the inaugural Redwood Empire Conference Bay Division champions after defeating Maria Carrillo 48-21 in Santa Rosa Friday night.

It’s back to the top of the mountain for the defending state champions, who missed out on the NBL-Redwood final title last year – before the region’s soccer teams were reorganized into new leagues.

Best Takeaways

The Mustangs (9-1, 5-0 REC-Bay) showed exactly why they are the league’s crème de la crème, rebounding from a slow start to put the game and the title to bed.

Mason Caturegli’s three touchdowns in the first half were the perfect illustration of this. The running back rumbled 10 then 5 yards before catching a screen pass from Gabe Casanovas and carrying it 69 yards to the house.

Speaking of Casanovas, his four total touchdowns (two rushing, two passing) complement Caturegli’s running game perfectly. In perhaps his best throw of the night, Casanovas uncorked a 58-yard bomb that found Tye Nickens for the touchdown. Nickens finished with just three catches, but he turned them into 103 yards and a score.

The St. Vincent defense, meanwhile, held Carrillo’s running game in check for most of the game. Brody Breen notched four tackles and four assists, with two tackles for loss. Linebacker Hudson Kensic was once again a star with six tackles, three assists, a tackle for loss, a sack and a fumble recovery. Rob Rooks was also superb with three tackles, three assists, a tackle for loss, two sacks and a forced fumble.

One bright spot for Carrillo (7-3, 3-2 REC-Bay) was the play of Logan Bruce, one of the area’s most underrated running backs. A state-ranked wrestler who missed football last season due to shoulder surgery, Bruce has been on fire this year in Carrillo’s offense. That talent was on full display when he broke free early in the fourth quarter, turned on the jets and scored from 65 yards out. He finished with 19 carries for 116 yards and a score.

Quotable

“I am so proud of our team and our coaching staff. We worked very hard for this; we had a good week of practice. We did a really good job tonight against the wing-T and the running game, aside from the one run that Logan Bruce hit late in the game…we struggled a little in the first half offensively, but we fixed things up, and we have good players on both sides of the ball that made some plays tonight. — Trent Herzog, St. Vincent head coach

“We spotted a few early, and that wasn’t typical of us. It felt like we weren’t really ready to play, and they came out and took advantage of the situation…I was really proud of our guys in the way they fought and played our style of football. Our mindset, our goal is to work for our best game, and that’s what we plan to do as we move forward. — Maria Carrillo head coach Jay Higgins

To be continued

Both teams will advance to the playoffs next week and will learn their playoff fates when the NCS seeding committee meets on Sunday.

You can reach staff writer Kienan O’Doherty at 415-887-8650 or [email protected]. On X (Twitter) @kodoherty22.