Fountain Valley’s offense leads the way as Barons roll past Woodbridge 40-7 for first win

Fountain Valley seniors Tanner Ciok (left) and Blake Anderson led the Barons to a victory over Woodbridge. (Photo Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone)

Fountain Valley’s football team celebrated its first victory of the season Thursday night at Huntington Beach defeating Woodbridge 40-7 in a game that was well decided by halftime.

The Barons (1-2) jumped out to a 33-7 lead at halftime behind running back Tanner Ciok and receiver Blake Anderson and coasted in the second half.

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The Baron players honored first year coach Chris Anderson by dousing him with a bucket of Gatorade after the game.

“We came out and played physical, we took care of the ball and played great run defense, it was a really great team win,” Coach Anderson said. “In all phases we did a good job. I’m pleased with the direction we’re going.

“The staff did a great job this week. When we can run the ball effectively, it opens things us for us down the field and we did that tonight.”

The offensive line opened up huge holes for Ciok, who rushed for 140 yards on 25 carries and TD runs of 12 and 17 yards in the first half.

Anderson hauled in eight catches for 190 yards. He had a 69-yard TD pass from Liam Caldwell and a 38-yard pass from Jimmy Russell. Russell, who threw for 153 yards and Caldwell, who threw for 83 yards, shared the quarterbacking duties.

“I think I did all right, there are obviously things I can improve on,” Ciok said. “My line did amazing. That’s the only reason why we ran the ball good today and our qbs stepped up a lot today. We didn’t have a lot of penalties. We were doing good. This is very important, because I know if we lost this, I know we would all be down and not motivated because that’s how we kind of were after the North Torrance loss. So it’s good to get a win and get these guys up.”

Woodbridge (0-3) struggled all night offensively and the Warrior defense was unable to contain Fountain Valley. Woodbridge quarterback Ethan Assayag passed for 90 yards with one interception.

After falling behind 17-0, Woodbridge got back into the game on a 74-yard TD run by Carry Rainey out of the wildcat formation.

But Fountain Valley answered back when Caldwell hooked up with Anderson on a score to make it 24-7.

“They scored that touchdown and they thought they were going to have momentum and then we came out and scored and shut down that momentum and showed them we’re not going to shut down,” said Anderson. “We kept bringing it and kept the gas pedal going.”

Anderson said it was a career high for him and a memorable night for he and his teammates.

“We’ve been putting in the work, so it felt amazing to come out here and win, home crowd and you got that energy and it’s nice to get a win in front of everyone,” he said.

James Martinez gave the Barons an early 3-0 lead on a 33-yard field goal. Fountain Valley capped the scoring on a 2-yard TD by Anthony Rodriguez late in the game following a 63-yard interception return by Evan Frink.

Fountain Valley also notched a safety in the second quarter when the ball was snapped over the head of the Woodbridge center and recovered in the end zone by the Warriors.

Woodbridge struggled all night. The Warriors had been using two quarterbacks. But one of the QBs, Tate Smith, suffered a mild concussion last week playing special teams and wasn’t available, Gibson said.

Gibson said the main problems were on defense.

“It was pretty bad,” he said. “I looked at us defensively and it just seemed like we had breakdowns here and there. I didn’t feel like we were getting blown off the ball but in our defense, there is gap integrity, and in the first half, we just didn’t have it. At halftime, we made the adjustments and a little bit of them being up and our kids kind of figuring out some stuff. That helped.

“Offensively, we haven’t gotten any continuity. We’ve had some big plays. But we haven’t really been consistent and I thought our offensive line did a really good. This was the first time they come off the ball and knew what they were doing and knocked some bigger kids back. We just have to get better. We can’t have the mistakes that we have. Just the basic stuff. We got to go back and work.”

Other than Rainey’s big run, Woodbridge had less than 20 yards rushing. Receiver Jacob Dube had four catches for 55 yards.

One of the Warriors backs, Max Tipple, focused his efforts on the linebacker spot, Gibson said.

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com