PALM DESERT — It was just one of three mismatches across the Desert Valley League on Friday, but Palm Desert High School's domination of Cathedral City was as thorough as any.

The Aztecs scored two touchdowns in every period except the fourth, when they scored one. The Lions scored three touchdowns late to make 49-19 final score look respectable.

Palm Desert running back Donell Griffin was the story of the night, scoring five touchdowns. The senior running back primarily did his damage with runs up the middle and off tackle, amassing 152 yards, with only three of his 23 rushes going for more than 10 yards.

“I don't think I've ever rushed for five touchdowns before — that's my first time,” Griffin said. “I was just using power runs, just getting it done in the middle. They would swarm to the ball and wouldn't give up and they'd shoot out my legs.”

He also gave credit to his offensive line, which was much larger than Cathedral City's.

“If the line didn't do as well as they did, I wouldn't have been able to survive it,” he added.

A close second as star of the night for the Aztecs was quarterback Cameron Curtis, who had a solid game, throwing for 172 yards and one touchdown — a 10-yarder to sophomore tight end, Jalen Cope-Fitzpatrick, the first scoring reception of his high school career.

Curtis' favorite target of the evening was senior wide receiver James Rafter, who caught six passes for 81 yards.

Ironically, it was an injury to backup quarterback Christian Fedorchenko, that led to Griffin's five-touchdown performance. That made head coach Pat Blackburn wary to have Curtis run the ball as often as possible.

“Fedorchenko was not available, so we made a decision to take the pressure off Curtis and not give him as many carries, and that's why (Griffin) got so many carries,” Blackburn said. “Obviously (Cathedral City is) struggling, we just took care of our own business and played good football — our brand of football, no mistakes, good running, good tackling.”

Considering the hard times on which Cathedral City has fallen — losing seven in a row since their opening victory against Beaumont — head coach Mitch Donnelly was relatively pleased with his team's performance Friday.

“I thought our effort was a lot better tonight (than last week in a 56-14 loss to La Quinta),” Donnelly said. “We've just got to tackle better, but our energy level was better this week.”

He was also happy about some improvement from Lions' sophomore quarterback Jake Garcia who went 13 for 28 for 193 yards. He threw two interceptions again this week, but balanced them somewhat by tossing a 70-yard touchdown pass to senior receiver Daniel Champion.

“He did OK, he threw some nice balls and he cut down on his mistakes,” Donnelly said.

The victory improves the Aztecs to 7-1 overall and 3-0 in DVL play. The loss drops the Lions to 1-7 and 0-3 in league play. Palm Desert travels to Palm Springs on Friday, and Cathedral City travels to Indio on the same night.