RIO VISTA LEAGUE FOOTBALL: Artesia’s defense records third straight shutout, pummels struggling John Glenn

October 18, 2026

By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X

It’s not often that a high school football team can have such an offensive performance in only 22 plays, but Artesia High can thank its defense for that. The Pioneers had nearly 350 yards on offense, but the defense was even better, limiting John Glenn High to negative eight plays on 32 plays in a 58-0 rout on the road last Friday.

It’s the widest margin of victory over the Eagles since 2005 (51-0) and the fourth shutout against Glenn since at least 1999. In securing the seventh straight victory over Glenn, Artesia is now 22-6 against its longtime Suburban League and 605 League rival since 1999.

“It’s definitely a model that I, as a former player…I’m a defensive guy; I played linebacker and D-line my whole high school career,” said Artesia first-year head coach E.J. Ashby. “I understand how impactful a good defense can be, because it’s not only turning the ball over, it’s three and outs; it’s making sure we have good field position, so on and so forth. When you can have explosive plays on offense, it just makes it look better, and a little easier.”

“We’ve been struggling offensively for the last four games,” said Glenn head coach Dwon Drummer. “I don’t know; I don’t know if it’s something that I need to look at as far as film goes, but teams are kind of keying in on what we like to do. They have answers for what we’re trying to do. We just haven’t been able to execute.”

Artesia (6-1, 3-0) has not allowed a point in a Rio Vista League contest while the Eagles dropped their fourth game in a row after opening the season with four straight wins. But Glenn has scored just one touchdown during its skid.

Artesia’s second-longest drive of the game came in its first possession as it went 51 yards on five plays before settling for a 36-yard field goal from senior Giovanny Martinez. After that, the Pioneers would have nine plays the remainder of the half, scoring on their next three offensive drives.

It began with a 28-yard touchdown run from junior running back Justin Pettus with 2:55 left in the first quarter. That was followed by a five-yard scamper from senior halfback Izayah Carranza 1:14 into the second quarter, ending a six play, 65-yard drive. On the fourth play of Glenn’s ensuing drive, senior cornerback Makei Fitzgerald returned the lone interception thrown by Glenn junior quarterback Ryder Perez 59 yards for the fourth score of the night and with 8:07 left in the half, it was 24-0.

Following the second three and out of the half for the Eagles, Pettus needed just two plays to add another touchdown, this one from 67 yards out. By halftime, the Pioneers were outgaining the hosts 195 to negative 23 in yards.

“I remind the defense daily, not just before the game, that they dictate if we win or lose,” said Ashby. “We have a lot of offensive weapons, but I tell them we only have one ball. So when you only have one ball, you can’t always get the ball in everyone’s hands on offense. So, we have to win on defense.”

Glenn had been without the services of sophomore Kellen Huckelberry for nearly three games but was only able to catch a pair of passes for 19 yards in the first half and did not have a tackle on defense.

“He’s rusty,” said Drummer. “He literally took probably four weeks off because we had a bye week (on Sept. 18). So, he’s still kind of working himself back into playing shape. Once the game got out of hand, I didn’t want to put him in harm’s way; kind of protect him a little bit and make sure he can finish the season.”

The Pioneers didn’t waste any time to begin the second half as Fitzgerald busted loose for a 71-yard touchdown run on the first play, then a fumble on Glenn’s initial play of the half resulted in a 25-yard return by sophomore linebacker Talitua Fonoimoana for another touchdown and within 43 seconds, it was 45-0. The last two scores came in the fourth quarter-a 23-yard pass from junior Jorge Velazquez to Carranza and a 31-yard run by junior Andrew Quarles, both coming within three plays of each other.

Pettus led everyone with 107 yards on half a dozen carries, but those close to the Artesia program know he can put up better numbers.

“He’s just so explosive,” said Ashby. “I want to give him more carries, but he breaks so many of them open that it makes it look like I’m trying to run up the score with him, and stat-pad him. But I just want to give him carries because at some point, we will face tough teams like next week against Whittier where he’s going to have to carry the ball more because plays are going to be two yards, three yards and then a ton of dust.”

Junior quarterback Zyir Lewis threw three passes, but two were completed for 56 yards and Carranza added 43 yards on half a dozen rushes. If there was one negative for the Pioneers in the contest, it came from the infraction penalty where they were called for 14 penalties for 160 yards, drawing the ire from Ashby.

“That is still the most penalties we’ve had all year, and I don’t know what got into them today,” said Ashby. “We had a good week of practice, so I don’t know if they just got comfortable with the score and was trying to do things to make highlights. But way too many penalties. We can’t afford that next week; Whittier is too good. I respect them; I’ve seen what they have done this year. They’ve played a tougher schedule than we have.”

The loss ended any chance for the Eagles, who haven’t seen life in the CIF-Southern Section playoffs since 2019, to claim one of the three automatic berths given to the league. But with two games remaining against teams with a combined 4-11 overall record, a chance for an at-large berth is still in play.

“I would say the level of competition,” said Drummer of the difference between the first four games of the season and the last four games. “We are playing teams who are a lot better than the first four that we played, and I’ll say some injuries and some disciplinary issues that we had over the last couple of weeks (have hurt us).”

Perez completed half of his 10 passes for 32 yards while none of the four ball carriers reached positive yardage for their final total. Drummer said he will have to go back to the drawing board for the next two games of the regular season, admitting that he and his coaching staff will have to self-scout and see where they are wrong as coaches.

“I cannot put it all on the players; I won’t,” he added. “At the end of the day, I’m the head coach and it’s my team, so I have to go and see and make sure that us as coaches are doing what we need to do to not be self-predictable or see if we are. Maybe we predictable, I don’t know. The issue is we are running into a lot of issues of injuries. We have a lot of two-way players, so that’s hurting us. We’re having to put in guys who don’t have a lot of experience.”

The initial Rio Vista League title comes down to an Artesia road game against Whittier High on Oct. 22 at California High while the Eagles are home to Lynwood High on Friday with the winner leaving the sole position of the cellar spot.