Warketin Stadium was packed on Friday night for the 64th matchup of “The Big Game” between the San Marcos Royals and the Santa Barbara Dons, a crosstown rivalry that has no shortage of bad blood and historic moments.
This year’s matchup, however, added what may be the strangest chapter in the decades-old rivalry, with the first-ever tie game between the two teams following a controversial finish that descended into chaos and ended with both head coaches meeting at midfield for a heated argument over whether to continue the game into overtime.
After an exciting game of back-and-forth scores, both teams were locked at 20-20, and San Marcos had a chance for a 45-yard field goal to win the game in the final seconds. When the kick came up short and the game clock ran out on the next play, nearly everybody in the stadium expected the teams to settle the score in overtime.
Any previous year, overtime would have been automatic. But this season, the crosstown rivals were placed into different leagues, making their annual matchup a non-league game, which came into play on Friday because of a little known rule that both coaches must agree to overtime prior to the game for the teams to play extra time in non-league matchups.
In the confusion at the end of game, Santa Barbara head coach Nate Mendoza was visibly upset over the fact that San Marcos head coach Ralph Molina was content to end the game in a 20-20 tie. In the tense moment, coaches and players had to be separated as Mendoza yelled, “We want to play! Let’s Play Ball!” Coach Molina shook his head in response and said, “Game’s over.”
“They’re supposed to ask before the game,” Molina told reporters in a post-game interview regarding the decision. “Nobody brought it up.”
He called the tie a “moral victory” for the Royals, and said that he felt that the team had played well and he was not willing to risk taking a loss if the game continued.
“I’m happy with this,” Molina said. “Yeah I’m a competitor. I want to go at it, but at the same time, I know what our goal is. If we lost this — all that hard work, then to lose it in overtime — we would have been disappointed. So why even take that chance?”
When asked about players and fans that were hoping for the game to be settled win-or-lose in overtime, Molina replied: “Sure, everybody wanted it. But again, I know what I need out of my program, and right now we wanted something extremely positive going into league play.”
Outside the Santa Barbara locker room following the game, coach Mendoza gave credit to the Royals — ”Those guys played outstanding tonight,” he said — and added that his message to his own team was clear: “We should have never been in that position in the first place.”
But the tie did not sit well with Mendoza. “Coaches have to agree on it, and that’s the rule,” he said. “We can’t do anything about the rules.”
According to CIF Southern Section policy, a disagreement between coaches in a non-league game results in a tie.
“We didn’t agree on overtime, and [Molina’s] okay with a tie,” Mendoza said. “It’s not okay with me, but I can’t do anything about the decisions that he has to make.”
The unsatisfying ending deflated an otherwise outstanding rivalry game, in which the Royals played beyond expectations and gave Santa Barbara trouble on both sides of the ball. San Marcos quarterback Danny Diaz earned the 29th Annual Gary Blades Memorial Big Game Most Valuable Player Award with a career performance, throwing for two touchdown passes and escaping the Dons’ defense consistently with his scrambling skills.
“Phenomenal effort, great rivalry game, and great example why you never overlook any opponents,“ Mendoza said. “Hats off to that quarterback, he was scrambling around and finding open guys, and that’s what got us tonight defensively.”
Santa Barbara’s usually high-powered offense had trouble finding a rhythm in the first half, and the team’s problems compounded when starting quarterback Laird Finkel went down with a shoulder injury midway through the second quarter. Dons’ senior Kai Mault, who is usually a one-man highlight reel as a receiver and kick returner, took over at quarterback — a move that limited Santa Barbara’s offensive choices and Mault’s ability to find space to use his speed.
After a slow first half that ended with San Marcos holding onto a 7-6 lead (thanks to a missed extra point by Santa Barbara) the Royals got the ball on the first drive of the third quarter and marched 72 yards down the field to score. After a bad snap on the extra point, San Marcos led by seven points, 13-6.
With Mault in at quarterback, the Dons leaned on the ground game with running backs Zane Webb and Bode Fauskee trading carries to take Santa Barbara into goal line territory on the next drive. Mault then finished the drive with a two-yard plunge in the end zone to tie the game at 13-13.
Just a few plays later, San Marcos took the lead right back when Diaz escaped a near-sack in the pocket and found senior Nathan Jones down the left sideline for a 53-yard touchdown pass to light up the home crowd and go up by seven points, 20-13.
On the first drive of the fourth quarter, Mault got the Santa Barbara offense going with a few clutch completions to receiver Carter Debusk, and with just over nine minutes to go in the game, Debusk finished the drive with a 30-yard touchdown catch — his second touchdown of the game — to tie the game at 20-20.
The teams would trade a few more possessions before the end of regulation, though neither would score again.
“I’m very proud of our boys, they fought the entire time,” Mendoza said. “That just shows what type of fight we got in the locker room. We faced a ton of adversity tonight and the boys kept fighting.”
While Santa Barbara is still technically undefeated (4-0-1), they have a few key injuries on the squad, including Finkel, who is unlikely to return following the bye week next week, and receiver Mason Morales, who was out for the rivalry game this week. The Dons also have a tough schedule ahead in their new league, the Conejo League, with matchups against Newbury Park, Rio Mesa, Calabasas, Westlake, and Thousand Oaks in the final stretch of the season.
The San Marcos Royals (2–2-1) will look to build on their momentum with their first Tri-County League game against Fillmore on October 4, followed by games against league opponents Santa Paula, Hueneme, Agoura, and Dos Pueblos.
While the tie marks the end of the Dons eight-game win streak over the Royals, Santa Barbara still leads in the all-time series against San Marcos in “The Big Game” rivalry, which now stands at 39-24-1.