Second-seeded Lathrop took care of business Wednesday night with a 46-12 thumping of visiting No. 17 Ripon to open the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III flag football playoffs at Bennie Gatto Field.
“This is the first playoff game, and you always want to defend the home field,” Spartans coach Randy Baltazar said. “We had to make sure the girls were excited but not nervous, and we stuck with our game plan of taking care of the football and making sure our defense keyed in on their players.
“We really didn’t do anything special, other than play the game and stick with what we do best.”
Luz De Luna (13-of-22 passing, 131 yards; two carries, 19 yards) directed the offense for Lathrop (18-3) running for a 4-yard touchdown and throwing touchdown passes of 30 yards to JayLeiyah Ray (three receptions, 42 yards; three carries, 41 yards), 5 yards to Tianna Gonzalez and 20 yards to Morgan Hegler.
“We went over their defense, and we trusted in what we could do,” De Luna said. “On the field, we all had each other’s backs, and we put everything that we practiced into play.”
Ray added a 20-yard touchdown run and snagged two interceptions.
“Coming in, we were the higher seed,” Ray said. “We had to stay focused, lock in and we can’t overlook anybody.
“We have to come in head strong, and we had to start off on offense booming, which we did, and we locked it down on defense also.”
Melia Lewis got the Spartans scoring parade started with a 40-yard touchdown run with 9:35 left in the first period and six minutes later Hegler chipped in a 5-yard scoring run.
Aaliyah Thompson highlighted the Lathrop defense with a safety.
“She was going to try and run it,” Thompson said. “I knew it was going to be close.”
Angie Gonzalez posted seven pulls for the Spartans, Thompson four and Heiddy Camacho an interception.
Ana Shriver (13-of-24 passing, 126 yards) threw a pair of touchdown passes for the Indians (11-14) to Ava Aguirre (seven receptions, 63 yards) of 2 and 10 yards.
Teagan Osborn, Mia Hendryz (four receptions, 36 yards), Aguirre, Haylie Sullivan and Elena Vandernakker posted three pulls apiece for Ripon.
