Los Amigos coach Melo Guess talks to his players after Thursday’s win. (Photos: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).

Two well-known league rivals, Los Amigos and Santiago, met on Thursday evening for the season opener in Garden Grove.

The two teams continued their rivalry in a non-league match. From the start, it was Los Amigos’ night. The Lobos opened with a 46-7 win over Santiago in non-league action.

As part of the OC new league plan, Los Amigos are in the Sigma League and Santiago is in the Tango League. But both Los Amigos coach Melo Guess and Santiago coach Doug Ovsvath wanted to continue the rivalry.

The motivated Lobos took a 26-7 lead after one quarter and never gave up. Los Amigos defeated Santiago 24-8 in the Garden Grove League final last season.

“We’re a confident group and I think that starts with me. My guys feed off my energy. I’m a high energy guy at practice and a high energy guy at games because I feel like the guys need that,” Guess said. “Tonight they didn’t need it much because they’re their rivals and you get up for games like that. But I think all the guys are buying in and trusting the process and that’s what we’ve preached and I think that’s what you saw tonight.”

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The Lobos had several key offensive players. Senior Issac Galindo was the first to score three touchdowns, two in the first quarter on runs of 10 and 5 yards, and finished with a 95-yard run.

“That was to be expected, he played great in the scrimmage against Fountain Valley, I told him to keep the same energy. You see his size and he doesn’t scare anyone, but he runs fast and has great vision and I thought he did a really good job tonight,” Guess said.

Raul Cruz scored two touchdowns, the first of 30 yards to open the scoring pass while running for 93 yards, and quarterback Jayvin Le threw a touchdown pass and threw passes for 173 yards.

Receiver Chris Flores caught a touchdown pass and had 104 receiving yards for the Lobos.

Le also gained some yards on the ground and directed the offense well.

“He played great. We didn’t need him to be Tom Brady,” Guess said of Le. “We needed him to manage the game, which I thought he did well, and not lose the ball. He did that, and he came out and made some plays, he was effective on the ground.”

Trailing 7-0, Santiago tied the game with a 59-yard touchdown run by Ozzy Granados, but later in the quarter the talented running back was injured and did not return, leaving him with little offensive threat.

Ovsvath said his dismissal was a precautionary measure.

“He broke off that long run for us, he’s a special player for us,” the coach said. “It doesn’t seem like anything too bad, but I think we just left him out. He didn’t feel comfortable getting back in there, coach didn’t feel comfortable getting him back in there. I’m not really sure what happened.”

“I’m proud of the way the guys fought and persevered. We just have a lot to clean up and get right. We got beat by Los Amigos at every stage of the game, so we have a lot to get right. The coaching staff will come together and focus on Westminster and see what we can do.”

Veteran quarterback James Gonzalez led the Cavaliers offense, running for 106 yards and throwing for 47 yards.

“James Gonzalez is an incredible leader,” Ovsvath said. “He’s always fighting, giving his best and leading his team. This year we’re even lucky enough to have him play defense. He’s just flying around.”

Los Amigos led 26-7 at halftime and 32-7 at the start of the fourth quarter.

Galindo scored his final point of the game with a 1-yard touchdown run and Hector Arroyo had a 1-yard touchdown run in the final minute.

“It’s a big game, it’s a rivalry and we just had to get it over with,” Galindo said. “It’s nice to be able to play against a team we’ve played before in our league and have a good game against them.”

Guess was also satisfied with the defensive performance, which was particularly effective in the passing game.

“We brought in a new defensive line this year. I’ve been pulling double duty for the last three years, calling both offense and defense, and tonight I was relieved to just focus on offense,” Guess said. “The defense did their job tonight, gave us great field position and we did our job on the other end.”

—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; [email protected]