ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) - Heading into their matchup against the Laguna Creek Cardinals, the Pleasant Grove Eagles were ranked 15 in the Sac-Joaquin Section and showed why as they took down the Cardinals 27-6. 

This was the opening game for both the Eagles and Cardinals in the Delta League, and the Eagles dominated thanks to the performance of junior Kate Meyers. 

“She’s kind of the heartbeat of this team. When she goes, we go. She’s extremely athletic, very intelligent and her basketball background carries over for her in this arena,” said Eagles head coach Jeremiah Taylor. “She’s great, great to be around, and she’s doing such a good job for us.” 

Meyers was a game-changer on both sides of the ball as she passed for 92 yards, threw for three touchdowns, rushed for 106 yards with a touchdown, completed five tackles on defense and picked off two passes for interceptions, according to MaxPreps.

The biggest target on the night for Meyers was junior Sierra Giacomini, who had five receptions for 59 yards and two touchdowns, according to MaxPreps. This connection could be attributed to their basketball friendship, Taylor said. 

“They’ve known each other for a little bit before they came into this, but (the connection) it’s with anyone. We have girls that can make some plays or some other receivers that you guys are going to hear about, so we’re excited to see what they got,” Taylor said. 

The other offensive threat for the Eagles was freshman London Huey, who rushed for 59 yards on four carries and caught a touchdown pass from Meyers early in the matchup to open the scoring, according to MaxPreps. 

“I mean, speed kills,” Taylor said. “It’s great to have a girl who can scoot like that and anytime we can get her the ball she has a touchdown potential every time.” 

The Cardinals were unable to get much going on offense, as they were shutout through the first half. 

“We had struggled a little bit moving the ball forward,” said Cardinals head coach Courtney Pfau. “We started moving back a little bit when we normally wouldn’t do so; I think that hurt us a little bit today.”

After going down early, the Cardinals tried to get things going in the air but were picked off twice and couldn’t get much going on the ground, either. 

“Typically, we’ve been fine with that (interceptions). I think we were just playing a team that had talent and they recognized what we were doing,” Pfau said. 

On the ground, it was captain and junior Annalise Mendonsa who insisted over and over again on getting something going offensively to put her team on the board. 

“She’s been a really good addition to our team. She’s one of our team captains, and she’s usually pretty good at finding ways through and she just today was a bit unlucky,” Pfau said. 

The Cardinals were able to get on the board in the second half when senior quarterback Trin Thao connected with senior wide receiver Jasmine Johnson for a touchdown. 

The extra point was denied thanks to the secure defense from the Eagles due to the hard work put in at practice, Taylor said. 

“We work so hard at practice at going over all the scenarios like staying in your positions, staying home, not getting fooled, and we’re getting better week by week,” Taylor said. 

This Eagles team is talented, as Taylor highlights the efforts from Emmelyn Goodpasture. Taylor said he asks a lot from her, and she is solid on both sides of the ball, as well as Makayla Teel, who he said can fly on the outside. 

This win was crucial for the Eagles as they were coming off a loss to the Christian Brothers Falcons by a score of 50-6. 

“When we scheduled CB, we wanted to schedule the champs. We wanted to see what it looked like to get to the mountaintop, and they’re the standard at this point,” Taylor said. “Our first step is winning league games. Our ultimate goal is to win the league championship, and that’s where we’re going to start so it was really good for these girls to get that taste back and start us on our journey.” 

As for the Cardinals, they look to bounce back in league as after their matchup with the Eagles they would ultimately fall to the Sheldon Huskies two days later to move to 0-2 overall in the Delta League. 

“Just having a positive add to making sure the girls come out to practice the next day, and knowing what we need to work on,” Pfau said. 

For the Eagles, they’d go on to beat the Elk Grove Thundering Herd two days later by a score of 52-0 to move to 2-0 in league and 6-2 overall to sit in first place of the Delta. 

“It feels great. These girls have been working hard. We’ve been out here for a long time. One thing that’s interesting for the girls is football is a practice sport more than a game sport, and so most of them don’t know that so there’s a lot of sweat and a lot of hard work and a lot of whistles and yelling during the practice days,” Taylor said. 

Due to this hard work at practice, the Eagles were able to pick up the win in front of their home crowd. 

For them to get the opportunity to see it start to happen with this first league game at home is really special,” Taylor said.