GALT, CA (MPG) - For three quarters, Bradshaw Christian had an answer for everything Galt did. Then the fourth quarter started, and the Warrior Girls scored 13 points – more than they had managed in any frame all night – and the answers ran out. Galt closed it 33-25, moved to 3-0 in league and did it the hard way for the first time this season.

The Warriors had opened the year by handling Union Mine 33-18 and then burying Rosemont 52-0 in a game that never had a pulse. Bradshaw Christian was the first opponent to genuinely trade blows, and Galt’s response – a fourth quarter that was its best eight minutes of the night – is the most useful thing to come out of the win.

Galt drew first, as it has all year, taking a 6-0 lead behind an offense that simply refused to leave the field. Quarterback Chloe Goehring-Tassell, the senior who plays quarterback, running back and receiver depending on what the Warriors need in a given moment, kept the ball herself 20 times for 75 yards and a score. That is not a typo and it is not a gimmick: 20 carries out of the quarterback position, grinding out 3.8 yards a pop, is a full night’s work for a back, let alone someone who also threw the ball 28 times.

The second quarter was traded evenly, 6-6, and Galt walked into halftime up 12-6. The third was Bradshaw Christian’s best stretch: 12 points in the frame cut the lead to 20-18 and turned a comfortable evening into a genuine contest. Goehring-Tassell’s passing line tells you how contested it was: 13 completions on 28 attempts for 159 yards, three touchdowns and five interceptions, a .464 completion percentage and a 60.6 quarterback rating. Those are the numbers of a player fighting for every yard against a defense that had decided it was going to make her pay for throwing the ball.

She threw it anyway. And the reason she could keep throwing it was Harper Suttenfield.

The senior athlete was the most dangerous player on the field, catching five passes for 87 yards and all three of Galt’s receiving touchdowns, averaging a preposterous 17.4 yards per reception with a long of 38. Every time Galt needed a chunk, Suttenfield produced one. Every time the Warriors needed six, she was the one who got there. Three touchdown catches in a game decided by eight points is the kind of line that ends up on a wall somewhere.

Balance kept the rest of the offense honest. Freshman Berkley Ward was the most efficient player in the building, breaking off 108 yards on just 11 carries – 9.8 per attempt, with a 45-yard burst – and adding a rushing touchdown plus three catches for 28 yards. Freshman Abigail Chapin chipped in two carries and three receptions for 24 yards, and sophomore Allie Schmidt added two grabs for 20. In total, Galt piled up 187 yards on the ground on 33 carries and 159 through the air: 346 yards of offense against a team that came to Galt believing it could win.

Then came the fourth. Thirteen points pushed the lead out to a place Bradshaw Christian’s seven-point answer could not reach, and the Warriors played the closing minutes as the team dictating terms rather than the team hanging on.

Holding that lead took a wrecking ball, and Galt had one. Sophomore Hayley Suttenfield finished with 13 flag pulls, seven of them for a loss, four sacks that cost Bradshaw Christian 12 yards, and two hurries. Thirteen pulls in a game where the team recorded 38 total means she was in on better than a third of everything the defense did. Four sacks means she was, functionally, unblockable.

She had help. Sophomore Lorelei Flores added seven pulls, junior Skyler Moore had five along with three passes defended, and senior Danah Godinez recorded four. Sophomore Lorrena Ponce had three pulls, one for a loss. Freshman Lilyana Ruiz generated three quarterback hurries of her own. Seniors Jannet Jimenez, Brittany Jaramillo and Kristine Meixner, junior Ximena Corrales and Harper Suttenfield – playing both ways – each recorded a pull.

Meixner supplied the cleanest defensive moment of the night, picking off a pass and returning it 21 yards. She also broke up three passes. As a unit the Warriors defended nine balls, hurried the quarterback five times and held a 25-point offense scoreless in the opening quarter, which is often where games are actually decided.

Three games, three wins. Galt has now scored 118 points and allowed 43, and it has shown three different faces doing it: the steady win over Union Mine, the blowout of Rosemont and now a game won late against a team that would not go away.

The Warrior Girls are 3-0. The schedule will get harder. On the evidence of Sept. 10, so will they.