CANYON COUNTRY – Hart football rolled over West Ranch 48-27 Friday night to win its fifth straight game after losing the season opener and improve to 2-0 in Foothill League play.
Quarterback Jacob Paisano led the way for the Hawks, completing 24 of his 30 passes for 319 yards and four touchdowns with two interceptions before leaving the game with an injury at the end of the third quarter.
“It’s a credit to these players, they work their butts off,” Hart coach Jake Goosen-Brown said. “It’s easy for me to make things up and call plays because these players are great and they execute the plays.”
Hart running back Zach Rogozik also had a strong performance in the game finishing with six catches for 144 yards and two touchdowns receiving. He also scored on two short touchdown runs in the game. Paisano’s other main target in the game was Parker Maxwell, who finished with nine catches for 84 yards and two touchdowns.
“It feels really good to get the win, especially after losing to them last year,” Rogozik said. “I feel like we could have done anything we wanted offensively and our guys up front did a great job winning that battle.”
Hart had a strong start to the game, jumping out to take a 13-0 first-quarter lead after Rogozik scored his first touchdown run of the game and Paisano and Maxwell had their first touchdown connection.
Hart took a 20-7 lead into halftime with Paisano finding Rogozik on a 34-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter. West Ranch’s lone score in the first half came on a 75-yard touchdown pass from Cooper Jackson to Luke Deperno to cut the lead to 13-7 at the time.
Paisano also threw his first interception of the game on the last play of the first half when Charlie Samuelson intercepted it for West Ranch in the end zone as Hart was threatening to score.
West Ranch had two offensive possessions in the first half where one was eight plays and the other was 12 plays and the Wildcats were unable to score any points on either drive. Both drives resulted in turnovers on downs in Hart territory.
On the first play from scrimmage in the second half, Kyler Garrity intercepted the ball for West Ranch and returned it 18 yards for a West Ranch touchdown to cut the lead to 20-14. Following the Garrity interception, Hart scored 21 unanswered points in the third quarter to jump out to a 41-14 lead after three.
Paisano’s last two touchdown passes in the game came on a 12-yard pass to Maxwell and a 39-yard pass to Rogozik late in the third quarter. Following the Rogozik touchdown catch, Paisano left the game with an injury and was replaced by Matix Frithsmith for the rest of the game.
Hart’s last score of the third quarter came when Owen Pontius recovered a fumble forced by Devin Thompson and returned it 11 yards for a touchdown. West Ranch cut the Hart lead to 41-27 in the fourth quarter after two fourth-quarter touchdown runs from Deperno.
While trailing by 14 in the middle of the fourth, West Ranch attempted an onside kick and was unable to recover it. Following the onside kick, Rogozik scored his fourth and final touchdown of the game near the end of the game to make the final score 48-27.
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Deperno finished the game with 23 carries for 199 yards with three touchdowns for West Ranch. Jackson finished the game 18 of 34 for 169 yards with one touchdown and one interception for the Wildcats.
“We had some things not go our way, I thought my kids went out and fought,” West Ranch coach Chris Varner said. “I’m just proud of the effort and they did all I asked them to do and just kept going hard.”
Hart will look to improve to 6-1 and 3-0 in league next week against Castaic. West Ranch will look for its first Foothill League win next week hosting Saugus at home.