GALT, CA (MPG) - There was never a moment of doubt at Warrior Field Sept. 15, and by the time the first quarter ended there was hardly a game left to play. Galt High's flag football team scored three touchdowns before El Dorado could find its footing, never let the visitors across the goal line all evening, and rolled to a 45-0 victory that was as complete as the final score suggests.

Senior quarterback Chloe Goehring-Tassell was the engine of it, and she was nearly unstoppable. Goehring-Tassell carried 15 times for 113 yards and four touchdowns, averaging 7.5 yards a pull-attempt and breaking a long of 21, while also completing 10 of 22 passes for 124 yards and a touchdown. Her 24 points accounted for more than half of Galt's total, but the most telling number on her line may have been the zero in the interception column. Galt did not turn the ball over, did not beat itself, and did not give El Dorado the short field that a struggling offense so desperately needs.

The Warriors piled up 368 yards of offense, 235 of them on the ground on 33 carries for a 7.1-yard average. Freshman Berkley Ward was the perfect complement to her senior quarterback, taking 11 handoffs for 104 yards and a 9.5-yard average with a long of 20. Ward also caught a 9-yard touchdown pass from freshman Abigail Chapin, who was a perfect 1-for-1 through the air in a cameo behind center, and added three conversion points after scores. Chapin contributed 20 yards on four carries and three receptions of her own, part of a freshman class that looked anything but overwhelmed under the lights.

The night's most explosive play belonged to another first-year player. Freshman receiver Ava Reeve hauled in a 40-yard strike from Goehring-Tassell for a touchdown and finished with two catches for 56 yards, a gaudy 28.0 yards per reception. Sophomore Allie Schmidt chipped in a 23-yard grab, senior Harper Suttenfield caught a 17-yarder, and freshman Madison Chapin added two receptions for 16 yards as eight different Warriors touched the ball on offense.

If the offense was efficient, the defense was suffocating. El Dorado rarely threatened, undone by a Galt front that lived in the backfield and a secondary that took away anything thrown downfield.

Sophomore Hayley Suttenfield was the best player on the field on that side of the ball, recording seven flag pulls, three sacks for 16 yards in losses, three total flag pulls behind the line of scrimmage and a pass breakup. Junior safety Skyler Moore led the team with eight flag pulls and also broke the game open with a 36-yard punt return for a touchdown, one of three Galt returns on the night.

Senior Kristine Meixner picked off a pass and broke up two more, sophomore linebacker Lorrena Ponce added six flag pulls, and senior linebacker Danah Godinez had four. Junior Sophia Perez, sophomore Lorelei Flores and freshman Lilyana Ruiz each recorded a flag pull as head coach Ryan Tassell rotated bodies through a defense that finished with 30 pulls, three sacks, one interception and three passes defended. El Dorado managed no sustained drives and no answers.

Galt's scoring came in waves. The Warriors put up 20 in the first quarter, added seven in the second for a 27-0 halftime cushion, scored twice more for 12 points in the third, and closed it out with a six-point fourth. Seven touchdowns were spread among four players, with Goehring-Tassell responsible for four of them and Reeve, Ward and Moore each finding the end zone once.

For Tassell, the point of the evening was not the margin but the method. Asked afterward what he liked most about the performance, the head coach kept returning to the same theme.

“I love this one play as a team,” Tassell said. “We win as a team, we lose as a team. It takes each of us doing our jobs to be successful. We are many parts of one entity. Pursue excellence in all things and the outcome will be greater than your expectations. I believe, you believe. Fear the spear.”

It is a philosophy the box score bears out. Fourteen Warriors appear somewhere in the statistics, freshmen and seniors alike, and the team's two most productive offensive players were a four-year senior and a first-year running back who has been in high school for a matter of weeks. 

Galt's underclassmen accounted for 124 rushing yards, 93 receiving yards and two of the seven touchdowns, a sign that the pipeline behind Goehring-Tassell is filling up fast.

The Warriors will look to carry the momentum forward, and if Sept. 15 was any indication, opponents will need to find a way to keep Goehring-Tassell in front of them and Hayley Suttenfield out of the backfield.