LAKEWOOD – Lakewood’s 35-7 win over rival Mayfair on Friday night broke a seven-game losing streak in the Milk Bucket rivalry for the Lancers.
The win earned coach Mario Morales the Milk Bucket trophy in his first year as head coach.
Morales lauded his team’s mindset while soaked in milk after his team doused him postgame.
“We talked about playing with confidence tonight,” Morales said. “When you play with confidence, you already know what you’re about. You know your ability. You don’t have to go out and try to act like it, you just go do it because you have confidence. The defense played with a lot of confidence tonight. It was exciting to see.”
Lakewood quarterback Kade Casillas completed 9 of 17 passes for 184 yards and a touchdown. He also rushed for a touchdown. Kagiso Boikanyo caught two passes for 103 yards and a touchdown. Nasir Jenkins led Lakewood with 72 yards rushing and a touchdown on one carry.
The Lancers opened the scoring on a pick-6 from their defense.
On second-and-8, Tiwan Jones picked off Elijah Quinonez and ran 59 yards to the end zone for a 7-0 Lakewood lead after the extra point by Jake Vega.
Casillas doubled Lakewood’s lead to 14-0 with 10:30 left in the half when he faked a handoff and ran to his right, 9 yards for a touchdown.
Mayfair was moving the ball efficiently for the first time with 2:30 left in the half when Quinonez aired a ball deep that was intercepted by Sammy Spencer on the Lakewood 25-yard line to stop the Monsoons yet again.
Quinonez completed 12 of 28 passes for 150 yards. He threw three interceptions.
Lakewood (2-2) limited Mayfair running back Jeromy Powell to a team-leading 58 yards on 15 carries.
The Mayfair defense forced a big stop in the closing seconds of the first half when Andrew Aldana chased down Casillas for a sack and a 15-yard loss to pin Lakewood back at its own 30-yard line and force them to run out the half.
Mayfair again looked like it would score with 5:53 left in the third quarter. After Chaz Gilbreath caught a 20-yard pass from Quinonez, setting up the Monsoons with first-and-goal, Lakewood stopped Mayfair on four straight plays, including a fourth-and-goal attempt from the 5 to turn the ball over on downs again.
On the next play, Casillas dumped a pass off to Boikanyo at the 5-yard-line and he did the rest of the work, running to the end zone for a 95-yard touchdown catch and a 21-0 Lakewood lead after the extra point.
Mayfair scored its first touchdown to open the fourth quarter. Quinonez threw to his left and connected with Miles Mitchell for a 12-yard touchdown pass to pull within two touchdowns with 11:36 left in the game.
Lakewood scored again in the fourth quarter thanks to an athletic run by Jordan Montgomery, who jumped over a Mayfair defender and landed on his feet to score on a 5-yard run, giving the Lancers a commanding 28-7 lead.
The Lancers tacked on one more score, a 72-yard touchdown run from Nasir Jenkins for a final score of 35-7.