Heritage Has Little Trouble With Great Oak in Opener

Heritage's offense, in white, moved the ball steadily against the Great Oak defense.

By Aaron Rachman

Heritage High School's football team took care of business in its season opener with a 35-13 victory at Great Oak on Friday, Aug 28.

The Patriots took advantage of an interception by junior defensive back Cameron Dawson in the opening minute of the game and never looked back. Junior running back Javier Luna had a big game, running 10 yards for the Patriots' first touchdown. Luna finished with 115 yards and 2 touchdowns rushing.

"He's one of those guys where you think he'll be able to do this after watching him in practice," Heritage coach Kraig Broach said about Luna's first big game. "However, until he does it on the stage, there's that little uncertainty. The way he ran today, how hard he ran, for his size (5-7, 150), he was able to break some things."

Late in the first period, quarterback Brett Virgil hit wide receiver Aleva Hifo with a 30-yard touchdown pass. Hifo made an acrobatic catch on the play. Great Oak came back with a quick touchdown but it was all Heritage the rest of the way. The Patriots took advantage of a fumble late in the second quarter to give them a 28-7 lead at halftime.

Virgil finished with just 75 yards passing, but little more was needed as the Patriots piled up 455 yards total offense.

Great Oak is coming off a 10-3 season in which it advanced to the CIF semifinals in 2014. The Wolfpack is expected to challenge Vista Murrieta for the Southwestern League title, but it was no match for the Patriots on this night.

"I thought the kids played hard," Broach said. "We made some mistakes here and there, but we also got a lot of big plays from a lot of different kids. That was the most exciting part of tonight.

"Brett played well. He's doing a better job of letting things come to him. There's been some growth there. And any time you can get the ball into Aleva's hands, there's potential for a big play."

Heritage plays at Los Osos High of Rancho Cucamonga Sept. 4 before opening its home season Sept. 10 against La Quinta.