After just a 5-5 regular season campaign, there were perhaps some questions among SanDiego County Football watchers as to why the Point Loma Pointers were selected as the No. 5seed in the CIF Division 2 bracket.

But those questions were put to rest emphatically by their opening-round victory over Valley Center by the final of 28-7 on Friday.

“I feel like as the season has gone on, we’ve started to really put things together at theright time, and tonight was another indication of that. Hopefully, we can carry that into nextweek” said Point Loma coach Ryan Price.

Before kickoff, Point Loma star wideout Romeo Carter spoke about how critical itwould be for Point Loma’s offense to start off fast and put pressure on the Jaguars right away.

And start fast they would, as the Pointers offense scored on their first two possessions, including a 19-yard touchdown from QB Ryder Watson to Ryan Patterson.

That 14-0 lead would be expanded upon in the final two minutes of the half as Carter would turn in the play of the night. The 6’4 wideout went airborne to haul in a 50-50 ball down the near sideline for a 33-yard touchdown catch that would hand the Pointers a 21-0 lead at the half.

It would be the first of Carter’s two touchdowns, and be an exclamation point of aperformance that saw him go for north of 150 yards receiving along with his two scores.

“Romeo is great on both sides of the football, and he is such a great kid. That’s the cherryon top of everything else,” noted Price, “He’s a dynamic guy; he never wants to come off thefield; having him is just a huge blessing for us.”

On the flip side of the football, Point Loma’s defense would be equally as impressive inthe victory. In the first half, the Pointers defense allowed just one first down to the Valley Center,forcing fives punts and a turnover on downs in the process.

In total, the Pointers front seven would hold a normally efficient Jaguars run game tofewer than 125 yards on the ground. Junior DE Braeden Bartocci would be exceptional at helping set edges for the Pointers front four, rarely allowing Valley Center Ball carries to flow or break tothe outside.

Meanwhile, on the back end, the Point Loma defense forced three interceptions: MatteoCorreia came away with one, and Carter came away with two.

“We knew they were going to try to run the ball,” said Price, “They run a lot oftight end sets, so we were in a situation where we were going to try to stop the run first. We haveplayed a lot of tough teams up front, so our guys are battle-tested. We really made it a point ofemphasis this week that we were going to stop the run and be aggressive up front.”

With their win on Friday night, the No. 5 Pointers will now travel to north for aCIF quarterfinals showdown against No. 4 Poway on Friday, Nov. 15.

Point Loma 28 , Valley Center 7

Point Loma 14 7 7 0 28

Valley Center 0 0 0 7 7

P: C. Ogden 1 Rush ( D. Weim Kick)

P: R. Patterson 19 pass from R. Watson ( D. Weim Kick)

P: R. Carter 33 Pass From R. Watson (D. Weim Kick)

P: R. Carter 30 Pass From R. Watson (D. Weim Kick )

V: L. Zetmeir 5 Pass from B. Mitchell (B. Rico Kick)