Bengals make late defensive stand to beat Mar Vista

Bonanza coach Dion Lee didn’t want to see his defensive backfield get beat down the field on Saturday afternoon.

Not with less than a minute remaining, and not with the Bengals holding a 19-14 lead over Mar Vista (California).

But some overzealous coverage led to a pair of pass interference calls that put Mar Vista at the Bengals’ 5-yard line with 15 seconds remaining.

And they rose the occasion.

Bonanza (1-2, 0-1 Southwest) forced three straight incompletions to seal its 19-14 victory and its first win of the season.

Lee said he hopes the win will change the fortunes for the Bengals, who had only scored two touchdowns coming into the game.

“This definitely builds our confidence because we’re a young team,” Lee said. “We only have two returning starters, so we’ll build on it and continue to do what we do.”

One of the big new additions to Bonanza’s varsity squad is quarterback Kyle Allison, who rushed for two touchdowns and threw for 119 yards.

His first score came via a scramble that turned into a 3-yard touchdown run at the end of the first quarter. He scored midway through the second quarter on a designed quarterback keeper from 10 yards out.

“The difference was we all trusted each other today,” Allison said. “For the first couple of games, there was a lack of confidence. But I feel like we trusted each other and put it all together today. It feels good to get my first varsity win.”

Josh Wilson scored Bonanza’s third touchdown on a 2-yard run with 6 seconds remaining in the first half. He led all rushers with 94 yards off of 14 carries.

Mar Vista clawed back in the third quarter when quarterback Jacob Beck threw a 70-yard touchdown pass to De’Von Peterson to pull within five, but the Mariners struggled offensively for the rest of the half.

Lee adjusted his team’s offensive strategy to take advantage of the 1 p.m. start time. The game was postponed Friday night due to lightning, and Bonanza focused more on its rushing offense and ran several no-huddle plays to wear down Mar Vista’s defense.

The Bengals finished with 229 rushing yards.

“We figured since we practice during the daytime, this is our weather,” Lee said. “(Mar Vista) was dying out there so we just kept running the no-huddle offense at them.”

It worked.