The St. Helena Saints struggled in their season opener against Salesian High School Saturday afternoon, losing 31-7 in Richmond. With only an eighteen-man roster, the Saints were up against a very physical Salesian squad.

"We just weren't ready for them to be that physical," head coach Ian Mac Millan said. "When you face a team that physical, you need to play that physical as well and we had short bursts of aggressiveness, but we need to play that way consistently for four quarters."

The Saints got off to rocky start when Salesian moved the ball down field on a 51-yard run with 9:51 left in the first quarter. This was the start of an offensive strike by the Chieftains that didn't end until the final tick of the clock in the fourth quarter.

St. Helena tried to get their own offense going but quarterback Luke McMullen had little time to get plays off and was constantly under pressure from the Salesian defense. The Chieftains applied pressure in all the right spots, as their offense got back on the field later in the first quarter and scored another touchdown to go up 14-0 heading into the second quarter.

It was the Salesian running game that dominated the clock with just the right amount of a passing attack that kept the Saints off balance all afternoon. With a running tandem of quarterback David Singleton and Jahvid Best, the Chieftains had 235 yards of total offense in the first half alone, 129 of those yards coming in the form of Best rushing plays.

St. Helena did find an offensive rhythm late in the first half when McMullen broke free for a 54 yard run, putting the ball on the Salesian 30-yard line. A fifteen yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Salesian brought the ball to the fifteen yard line. McMullen capitalized on the penalty, finding Jake Holguin in the end zone for the fifteen yard score and with a PAT kick from Joey Vinetari, the Saints closed the gap to two scores, 21-7. Not to be outdone, Salesian ended the half on a 47-yard field goal from kicker Jake Haskell, ending the first half 24-7.

Still, the young St. Helena team was no match for the pounding offense of the Chieftains, who put up another score in the third quarter when Best scampered into the end zone on a 22-yard quarterback draw, putting Salesian up 31-7.

St. Helena tried to stage one more final effort to move the football when the Chieftains fumbled on the Saints 2-yard line. Eddie McMullen recovered the fumble for St. Helena and Luke McMullen followed with a pass reception to Isiah Depina, worth of a first down and putting the ball on their own 18-yard line.

Luke McMullen dropped back to pass again with 4:23 remaining in the contest and found Holguin again, good for thirty yards and an additional fifteen were awarded on pass interference call. McMullen continued to try and make something happen, but the Salesian defense stifled the next three passing attempts and took over on downs to end the game.

"We went into the game knowing they were faster than us, but we weren't exploding off the ball and sustaining blocks like we had been in practice," Mac Millan said. "We were reverting to bad habits. We need to play with aggressiveness and be physical consistently for four quarters."