49ers impressive on all fronts

There wasn't much that went wrong for the Yuba College football team on Saturday night.

In fact, the 49ers' performance on the field was nearly perfect.

Playing West Valley in the first on-campus night game in school history, the 49ers came out eager to put on a show in their home opener. Then they went out and did just that by completely dominating the Vikings on both sides of the ball on their way to an easy 46-7 victory.

The win was never in doubt as Yuba used a powerful running game, big-play passing from Jon Garcia and a suffocating effort by its defense to put the game away early.

The 49ers jumped out to a 20-0 halftime lead, in which the Vikings had minus-5 yards of total offense and failed to record a first down. In fact, West Valley didn't move the chains until late in the third quarter when the score was 40-0 and Yuba had its second-team defense on the field.

Coach Ted Hoal was quick to point out that the schedule will only get tougher from here on out.

"That's not the same West Valley team we're used to playing, but I think we're getting a little better, too," Hoal said. "We'll definitely be tested next week against Sac City."

Yuba (2-0) opened the scoring in the second period when Jeremy Williams scored on a 13-yard touchdown run. The 49ers added to the lead minutes later on a 4-yard scamper by Charles Smith.

Garcia then fired his first TD pass of the game on a play-action fake, finding Devin Rahming in the back of the end zone from 13 yards out to give Yuba a commanding lead at the intermission.

The scoring onslaught continued in the second half when Garcia hit a streaking Rahming in stride down the right sideline for a 62-yard touchdown pass. It was a perfectly thrown ball by Garcia, who pointed out that the play didn't exactly go as designed.

"It was third-and-long and we actually had the wrong formation," said Garcia, who finished the evening 11 of 15 for 170 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. "We were running all verticals, so I pretty much just picked a guy and threw it to him. There wasn't much I could do."

Smith scored on a 9-yard run and Juan Johnson scored from 6 yards out to give the 49ers a 40-0 lead at the end of the third quarter.

Jordan Cruz added a 34-yard touchdown run in the fourth period to complete the scoring.

"We did pretty good, but there's still room to improve," Garcia said. "We made some mistakes, but thankfully we did it this week."

Rotating running backs in all night long, the 49ers steamrolled the Vikings to the tune of 368 yards on the ground. Johnson rushed 17 times for 135 yards and a touchdown and Smith added 91 yards on 16 carries and two scores.

Then there was the defense, which limited West Valley to just 44 yards of total offense in the game.

"Believe me, we line up against them every day at practice," Hoal said of his defensive unit. "Playing defense and running the football is the style we want to play."

While the victory was nice, Hoal said there is still plenty of room to improve.

"You'll never be perfect. There's always something you can do to get better," he said. "We have a chance to be a good football team so we can't get lackadaisical."

The 49ers will face off against Sacramento City College at home next week. The two teams met last year in Sacramento, with the Panthers coming away with a 31-23 victory.

"The teams we're playing in the future will present a good challenge," Hoal said. "It'll be interesting to see how we respond."