The562’s football coverage for the 2026-27 school year is sponsored by Long Beach Poly alums Wendell “WoWo” Moe, Jr. & Tyson Ruffins.
There’s been no shortage of grit and passion from the St. Anthony football team despite a six-game winless start to the season, and that certainly didn’t change on Friday night, even after the Saints fell behind by two touchdowns on the road against La Salle.
The Lancers were the next uphill battle for the Saints to overcome, but St. Anthony never wavered, responding with 17 unanswered points to come back and upset La Salle, 17-14. Quarterback Aidan Jones delivered the game-winning touchdown pass to Marcos Mendoza on 4th and 13 with just 75 seconds remaining before Travis Davis sealed the victory with his second interception, giving St. Anthony its first win of the 2026 season.
“These kids have had to fight so hard, and I’ve been telling them that we’re battle-tested,” said St. Anthony coach Jeff Magdaleno. “We’re not playing teams that we should be dominating. We’re playing good teams and we’re battling, and we knew that we were eventually going to get into these games and pull it out. We got into halftime and we said we’re not coming back to the locker room without a win. We went out and it was just the fire and passion that we played with.”
After struggling offensively in the first half, the Saints finally found their rhythm by sticking to the ground game with running back Evan Martinez. Martinez took on a heavy workload, including during St. Anthony’s two-minute drill, and scored the Saints’ first touchdown in the fourth quarter before Jones later delivered the game-winner to Mendoza.
“We knew this was a must-win game. Being my senior year, I knew we just couldn’t let off,” Jones said. “I wasn’t performing how I needed to perform in the first half, I knew we had to spark something in the fourth quarter. We just rallied together at the end of the game and put it all together. We just had to believe.”
The Lancers found their lead behind a nice start to the game from quarterback Jakari Bacot, who was responsible for throwing both of La Salle’s two touchdowns. Bacot linked up with fellow senior Jalen Remis for a score while also connecting with junior Daniel Freeman to take a 14-0 lead in the second quarter.
St. Anthony would finally find some offense in the second quarter, where the Saints found a field goal to cut the lead 14-3 and have something positive to go into the half. The Saints defense helped give its offense time to get started for the rest of the game, as Davis had his two interceptions while Miles Anglin had an interception to set up the Saints first touchdown.
“Our defense played lights out the whole game,” Magdaleno said. “We gave them a short field a couple times and went down 14. They just kept hanging in there, and our guys were flying around on defense. The energy was up and from a team standpoint, we just played our most complete game.”
It was another game against a tough opponent on St. Anthony’s non-league slate, with La Salle ranked 55 spots ahead of St. Anthony in the latest CIF Southern Section rankings via HSratings.com. St. Anthony currently sits at No. 239 but will need to build on that momentum with a few more wins to have a chance at a playoff stop. The Saints will go on the road at Crespi next week.
“We got that first win, and we’re hoping to ride the momentum,” Magdaleno said. “We want to get this thing rolling and find ourselves in the playoffs. Again, it’s one week at a time, and we have to get back to work this week. We did some good things that we want to expand on and we’ll get back out this week.”
