San Diego U-T Preps

Senior night is something every football player gets sentimental thinking about. It’s usually their last game on a home field.

For St. Augustine running back Elijah Preston, it was just another football game at Merrill Douglas Stadium.

In the first half of Friday night’s game against Lincoln, he bulldozed, danced and glided his way to 147 yards and three touchdowns en route to a 47-0 Saints win and an Eastern League title.

Like many nights throughout the past four years, Preston, the San Diego section’s second all-time leading rusher, showed why he’s often been regarded as the section’s best current running back.

Preston broke through two Hornets tacklers on his first scoring run from 11 yards out. In the second quarter, he dodged all would-be tacklers on a 21-yard touchdown.

His grandest run came later in the second quarter, a 42-yard run where he slipped outside the tackles, broke a tackle, juked four defenders and jogged the last 10 yards to paydirt.

If that wasn’t enough for the Hornets to deal with, the Saints had an overwhelming advantage with field position. On average, their drives in the first half started at the Lincoln 48-yard line.

Three of the Saints’ drives were less than a minute long with two of them producing touchdowns in one play.

The win did come at a cost, though. Saints coach Richard Sanchez said that linebacker Francoise Sims II will miss the playoffs with an elbow injury sustained last week.