Charles Hughes had a career night as Santa Ana defeated St. Margaret’s, 49-36, in its Orange Coast League opener on Thursday, September 14 at home.   

The senior scored a 22-yard touchdown in the first quarter to get the Saints (4-2, 2-0) on the board and tie the game at 7 in the first quarter.  

Hughes would add a 24-yard score in the second, tying it up again at 14 before adding another with an 80-yard run later in the quarter (to tie it at 21) and a his third of the frame to put the team ahead for the first time and for good, 28-24, before the half.  

Junior wide receiver Cristian Ramos caught a 54-yard touchdown in the third, and Hughes scored his fifth of the night to put Santa Ana up 42-24. 

Hughes finished with a career-high 283 rushing yards while finding pay dirt on five occasions.

“I felt great because everything we’ve done in practice worked out so, it was just really, really like, motivating,” he said. “It motivated me to do more because we had the momentum and they really weren’t ready so, we just kept doing what we were doing.” 

“I saw the holes opening and they weren’t really wanting to tackle me too much so I just ran behind my guys and kept going,”  he added. 

Senior quarterback Sergio Torres (7-14, 113 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions) added a rushing touchdown in the fourth to complete the scoring.

The Saints had 509 yards of total offense, consisting of 113 passing yards and 396 rushing yards. 

The Tartans (2-4, 1-1) were anchored by senior quarterback Max Ruff, who threw for 349 yards and three touchdowns while completing 21 of his 28 pass attempts.

“I mean, I saw two really competitive teams getting after it,” head coach Rory Schoonmaker said. “Frankly, they’re a very good team, they’re very well coached. They gave us a lot of problems but our kids fought hard and we were able to persevere. It all came down to execution man, our O-line has been a lot better in recent weeks and I think that’s attributing more points, you know what I mean. So I say that’s a big win for us.”

“We were a little bit more physical defensively, last game again we played another very very good quarterback and a very very good set of receivers” he added. “They gave us problems as did this team. Clearly, they didnt give us as many problems as the team from last week. But frankly, we’re getting home on sacks. That was another big set, it’s being able to tackle the quarterback in the backfield. We had issues with that last week and we had issues with that in the first half. In the second half, we finally kind of got it going and we got home. You know, he still made his plays, and if you play the style of football, it’s going to be big rewards and big bust you know.” 

On Friday, the Saints returned to the field, defeating Estancia, 40-6, to improve to 2-0 in league play. Torres threw two touchdowns to senior Adrian Sanchez and rushed for another as Santa Ana ran away from the Eagles (3-2, 0-1) on the road. Hughes also had another impressive performance, rushing for 145 yards and a score on just 11 carries.   

Santa Ana has another away contest this week when it takes on Calvary Chapel (4-2, 2-0) in a matchup of teams with identical records on Friday at 7 p.m. 

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