INLAND FIELDHOUSE

RIALTO – What impressed me most about the Summit-Eisenhower varsity football game on Friday, Oct. 20, 2023, was the breakaway speed of Dashaun Benton and Jacoby Pointer-Caldwell.

The Eisenhower duo outran anyone and everyone on Summit’s defense as the Eagles flew past the SkyHawks to earn the Sunkist League title. Benton’s two runs totaled 160 yards, and Pointer-Caldwell’s first two catches went for 107 yards. The made big plays look easy and so it’s easy to see why their 8-1 heading into the final week of the regular season.

Nick Matheny: “We were trying to mount a comeback, and the defense is starting to play, and then we have a drive where we’re 3rd-and-30 and those are situations that we practice. We start every Tuesday practice with a 98-yard drive from the 2. We made some mistakes tonight. I think there’s a little bit of physical and mental fatigue. We’ve got guys playing both ways. We could’ve rolled over in the second half, and we didn’t. It was a super clean game, too. No personal foul penalties the whole game, so I’m proud of my guys. Defense started making so plays and our quarterback (Jesse Vega) played his tail off. He’s the kind of kid I’ll stand behind. He’s a 4.0 kid and he’s got scholarship offers coming. He’s a guy I’ll follow into the fire any day.”

Al Brown: “(Big plays) we crucial. We fell asleep again in the second half so we’ve got to figure out what’s making us stall. Is it us or is it them? So we have to go back to the drawing board and look at what’s making us stall. The first half, great job. We executed on all cylinders, but it seems like sometimes we get out there and start playing with our … It get’s so easy early on that you take it for granted and you don’t capitalize when you need to. We were referred to this week as a 7-on-7 team, so we wanted to give them a little taste of what 7-on-7 was. I thought we did pretty well with physical football, too. We’re doing alright right now. We ain’t in no driver’s seat. Grand Terrace came in here last year and beat us so our goal remains to be 1-0 each week and now that we’re done with this one we’re going to go ahead and start getting ready for Grand Terrace.”

Summit – 8 – 6 – 0 – 8 — 22
Eisenhower – 13 – 18 – 0 – 0 — 31
First quarter
S – McCarthy 4 pass from Vega (Vega run), 9:19
E – Pointer-Caldwell 65 pass from Ruiz (pass failed), 8:26
E – Benton 87 run (Brown kick), 4:17
Second quarter
E – Blanco 2 run (kick blocked), 9:57
E – Ruiz 1 run (pass failed), 5:29
S – Vega 1 run (run failed), 2:55
E – Benton 73 run (pass failed), 0:50
Third quarter
No scoring
Fourth quarter
S – Vega 1 run (Vega run), 11:11
Team statistics
Total plays – Summit 65; Eisenhower 51.
First downs – Summit 13; Eisenhower 8.
Penalties – Summit 14-101; Eisenhower 7-46.
Turnovers – Summit 1; Eisenhower xx.
Individual statistics
Rushing – Summit: Mitchell 14-80, Vega 16-39, McCarthy 7-32, Ramirez 1-9; Eisenhower: Benton 2-160, Blanco 10-67, McCoy 2-14, Ashe 1-7, Pointer-Caldwell 10-4, James 2-2, Ruiz 2-(minus-4).
Passing – Summit: Vega 12-17-0-109; Eisenhower: Ruiz 5-13-1-178, McCoy 1-1-0-7.
Receiving – Summit: Ramirez 2-29, Miramontes 2-26, Lewis 1-20, McCarthy 4-16, Garcia 2-16, Mitchell 1-2; Eisenhower: Pointer-Caldwell 4-125, Benton 3-54.
Interceptions – Summit: Lewis 1-2; Eisenhower: None.