
MURRIETA ---- Jovonte Slater can do more than sprint on an all-weather track. The synthetic football turf seems to suit his soles just as well.
Slater ran for two touchdowns and returned a punt for another as Vista Murrieta's football team opened its season with a decisive 49-27 nonleague victory over visiting Etiwanda.
Playing for the first time since losing the CIF Southern Section Inland Division championship to Chaparral in December, the Broncos didn't always fire on all cylinders Friday night.
Slater certainly did.
The senior, a returning state-meet placer in track and field who has committed to USC on a track scholarship, ran for 117 yards on 10 carries and had more than 100 yards of return yardage, including an 82-yard punt return that gave Vista Murrieta a 42-7 lead with 6:12 remaining in the third quarter.
"That's what I was coming out here to prove," Slater said, when asked if he should be known more for than just his track talents. "I can do track and football. I can do both."
Slater's first touchdown of the night, a 17-yarder, gave the Broncos (1-0) a 14-0 lead with 6:26 left in the second quarter. Utah-bound Broncos quarterback Derrick Brown then rumbled 3 yards for a score to extend the lead to 21-0, but the Eagles (0-2) pieced together a 90-yard drive at the end of the half, scoring when quarterback Larry Cutbirth found senior Mike Sena for an 18-yard touchdown pass with 43 seconds left.
That seemed to just irritate the Broncos, who took just 8 seconds to score in the third quarter on Slater's 48-yard touchdown run after Aaron Piecukonis recovered an on-side kick on a gutsy, Sean Payton-like call by Vista Murrieta coach Coley Candaele.
Brown then hit Michael Mazur on a 33-yard scoring strike -- their second such connection of the night -- before Slater's punt return put an exclamation on the evening.
"He gets in the open field, and he's just tough," Candaele said of Slater. "And he's just learning to play football more and more."
Brown threw two scoring passes but completed just 4 of 12 passes for 83 yards. Overall, the Broncos, committed 14 penalites for 138 yards.
"There's a lot of newer kids playing," Candaele said. "Things are going to be a little more sluggish and a little off timing-wise."
For Etiwanda, Cutbirth completed 23 of 40 passes for 324 yards for two touchdowns, but he was also intercepted three times, which helped Vistabuild its big halftime lead.
"Our kids came out ready to play tonight," said Etiwanda coach Stephen Bryce, whose club lost to Fontana Summit last week. "We schedule teams like these for a reason." That very point led to some postgame bickering between the two staffs, as Etiwanda played its first string until the very end. The Broncos, meanwhile, had gone to their second- and third-string levels in the waning moments.