In a driving rain, there was no simple way to stop the Garfield rushing attack on Friday night at Southwest College.
Even without their star tailback, the Bulldogs scored six touchdowns — all on the ground — to defeat host Palisades 42-21 in a City Section Open Division quarterfinal playoff game.
Zastice Jauregui scored five times for the fifth-seeded Bulldogs (9-2), who earned a shot at No. 1-seeded Carson in the semifinals next week.
“Carson took us out last year so we’ll be trying to get payback,” Jauregui said.
Replacing Ceasar Reyes, who injured his knee early in the East L.A. Classic against Roosevelt and did not play in Garfield’s regular-season finale against Eagle Rock, Jauregui is filling his shoes just fine.
“He’s out for the year and we miss him but he just had surgery yesterday,” Jauregui said of Reyes. “We can run the ball against anyone … we have the best O-line in the City.”
Garfield’s Christian Gomez tackles Palisades’ Malachi Rossat the five-yard line during a City Section Open Division quarterfinal playoff game Friday night.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
Garfield received the second-half kickoff and on its first play, Jauregui raced 65 yards for a touchdown. Javier Vargas snuck into the end zone for the two-point conversion to make it 23-6. Jauregui capped the Bulldogs’ next drive with a 77-yard touchdown run on the same play — a direct snap to the running back.
Demare Dezeurn returned the ensuing kickoff 75 yards for a touchdown and quarterback Jack Thomas added the two-point run to pull the fourth-seeded Dolphins back to within 15 points.
Vargas burst through a hole on the second play of the Bulldogs’ next drive for an 81-yard gain, slipping to the slick turf just before the goal line. No matter, he pounded over left tackle on the next snap to make it 35-14 midway through the third quarter.
Garfield stopped Palisades on fourth down four times — the last completing a goal-line stand early in the fourth quarter after the Dolphins (10-1) had a first-and-goal at the two-yard line.
Dezeurn got the Western League winners on the scoreboard with 18 seconds left in the first half when a pass was tipped by two defenders and the junior transfer from Bishop Alemany grabbed the ball at the five-yard line and tiptoed into the end zone. He scored the Dolphins’ last touchdown on a 77-yard interception return with just over three minutes left in the game.
The Eastern League champions applied the finishing touch on Jauregui’s 12-yard run with 2:03 left.
Thomas entered the contest having completed 176 of 283 passes for 3,147 yards, 42 touchdowns and only three interceptions. He was the Division I Offensive Most Valuable Player last fall while throwing for 46 touchdowns and leading the Dolphins to the Division I championship game.
“There was talk that they were going to put 40 points on us,” Jauregui said. “They were undefeated, but we knew we could win.”
Palisades and Garfield had last met in the playoffs in 2013 when the Bulldogs won 27-20 in the first round in Division I, which was then the top division.