GARDEN GROVE – Garden Grove might not have looked like a top-ranked team in its opener a week ago, but the Argonauts made amends Friday night, rushing for more than 300 yards and forcing four turnovers en route to a 40-14 nonleague victory over visiting Woodbridge.
Jordan Antunez again ran for more than 200 yards, including a 69-yard touchdown sprint at the start of the second half to put the Warriors away. Malik Bilal added two touchdowns, one on a 54-yard interception return.
Antunez, who gained 262 yards in Garden Grove’s season-opening, 27-26 loss at Westminster, finished with 202 on 20 carries through a little less than 21/2 quarters, and Joseph Camarillo ran for 61 yards and two first-quarter scores as the defending CIF-SS Southern Division champion dominated from start to finish.
“It’s a big deal. We had to come back and play a lot better,” said Garden Grove coach Ricardo Cepeda, whose team dropped from first to second in the Southern Division poll after last week’s defeat. “A little bit of a letdown last week, kind of a CIF hangover – our guys thought they were really good.
“They had something to prove. Woodbridge was the only team that beat us (in a 13-1 campaign last year), so we wanted this game bad.”
Mario Moemoe made his second and third interceptions of the season and the Argonauts (1-1) limited Woodbridge (1-2) to just 57 yards on the ground.
Woodbridge’s Connor McBride, who ran for 1,018 yards as a sophomore last year, was limited to 44 yards on 11 carries, all in the first half, after gaining just 10 in last week’s 27-7 loss to El Modena.
Garden Grove scored on its first two possessions – Camarillo barging in from 4 yards on both – after Antunez picked off a pass on the first play from scrimmage and the Argonauts forced a punt on the Warriors’ next possession.
Woodbridge cut the deficit to 13-6 early in the second quarter, with McBride scoring on a 1-yard push. The Warriors then recovered a fumble, but their momentum was killed by Bilal’s interception return, and Danny Avila found Bilal in the end zone for a 23-yard score on Garden Grove’s next drive. The Warriors scored on a 56-yard pass from Nick Nash to D.J. Chiaramonte.