In a 49-0 football victory over Newport Friday night at Clemens Field, Philomath High’s Rocco De La Rosa put together a highlight reel with five touchdowns — three on receptions, one on a punt return and another on a pick six.
Watching No. 5 dance into the end zone became a too-common visual for the visiting Cubs, a team that was playing in its season opener.
Gallery: PHS football vs. Newport (Sept. 5, 2025)
A collection of photos from Philomath High School’s 49-0 football win over Newport at Clemens Field on Friday.
“He’s just a difference maker,” Philomath High coach Alex Firth said. “Both he and CD (Nuño) know the whole premise of our offense is get the ball to guys in space and let them run. They’re both big, physical targets that if you miss the first tackle, there’s a lot of yards after the catch. Both of them are explosive that way — it’s just getting them the ball in space and letting them do their thing.”
On the throwing end, junior quarterback AJ Altishin had a perfect evening by completing all eight of his pass attempts for 133 yards and three TDs — in windy conditions.
“If you noticed early on, we didn’t really throw a lot of passes downfield,” Firth said. “We threw the swing quite a bit but later in the game as the half was running out, we threw a couple of passes down towards the end zone and he looked really good. So I think it calmed him down and he had some confidence in himself.”
Despite the perfect completion percentage, Altishin admitted that he was never able to find much of a rhythm. On the first drive, there were several short passes, including behind the line of scrimmage, and then the offense had limited time on the field. Just one pass was attempted on the second TD drive and then De La Rosa scored the game’s third and fourth touchdowns on interception and punt returns.
“So I was off the field for a while and it was hard to get back into it,” Altishin said. “But I got back in and threw some passes and then we let the young guys play.”
On the game’s opening drive, Philomath went 73 yards on seven plays with Nuño scoring on a 20-yard pass. The Warriors were picking up big chunks of yardage on receptions with Nuño, De La Rosa and junior Kaden Howard all moving the chains.
Following a three-and-out on defense and a 24-yard punt, the Warriors had a short field for their second possession. On the second play, Altishin connected with De La Rosa for what ended up being a 28-yard touchdown.
After losing to Stayton in the opener, the Warriors regrouped in practice and spent a great deal of time eliminating some of the complexities on offense.
“It was me taking a bunch of plays out of the playbook and trying to simplify things to just get us down to the basics and not ask too much of him,” Firth said about his quarterback.
Said Altishin, “We pared a lot of it down and took a lot out, so that helped to have just less plays and more trust in the receivers. Because I can trust that they know what they’re doing.”
Down 14-0, Newport took the final 5-1/2 minutes off the clock in the first quarter with a promising drive. A key moment for the Cubs came on a fourth-and-5 pass from sophomore quarterback Jaxon McDowall to junior tight end Kaiden Reel. The play covered 18 yards and got the ball to the PHS 36.
The next fourth down attempt for Newport didn’t turn out so well. McDowall again went to the air on a fourth-and-6 play but De La Rosa got the interception and raced 72 yards to the end zone.
Newport’s next possession was a three-and-out and on the punt, De La Rosa broke off a 52-yard return to give the Warriors a 28-0 lead.
Philomath scored two more TDs before the end of the first half. Senior Lake Mulberry easily scored on a 9-yard run on a two-play drive that took just 26 seconds off the clock. De La Rosa then caught a 15-yard TD pass from Altishin to make it 42-0. On the latter possession, junior Kaden Howard had an eight-yard run on a fourth-and-3 to keep the drive alive.
De La Rosa, who was catching TDs last season from Caleb Russell, believes Philomath’s passing game is coming along with Altishin calling signals.
“I think we’ve done a decent job,” he said. “There’s still a lot of room for improvement but overall, I think I’m satisfied.”
In the second half, there was a running clock because the Warriors were leading by 35 or more points. Philomath scored on its first possession with backup QB Jayce Iverson connecting with De La Rosa on a 13-yard play.
De La Rosa now has eight touchdowns in just two games and there seems to be no limit on how he can score. In the season opener at Stayton, he broke off a 61-yard TD run on the first play from scrimmage and later threw a 27-yard strike to senior teammate CD Nuño. Of course, he also had a touchdown reception that covered 80 yards.
“It was definitely more intense,” De La Rosa said about last week’s team practices. “We just needed to make sure that the stupid mistakes we had last week wouldn’t happen again for this week and the rest of the season. I think we did a pretty good job of that — there weren’t very many penalties.”
So, did De La Rosa have a favorite touchdown?
“I’ve never had a pick six but probably my favorite was Jayce Iverson’s first touchdown (pass) because he hadn’t thrown at all,” De La Rosa said. “That was pretty cool.”
De La Rosa ended up scoring 32 of his team’s 49 points with the five TDs and a two-point conversion run.
Altishin said the win felt pretty good.
“It felt good to get back under our feet again,” Altishin said. “It was nice to really gain some confidence there.”
Interestingly, Philomath only had 10 first downs and 205 yards of total offense. Good field position to start drives, explosive plays and touchdowns scored on defense and special teams kept the Warriors from racking up huge numbers.
Not to be forgotten, the Warriors defense pitched a shutout and limited the Cubs to just 118 yards of total offense. Senior Ben McGovern and freshman Mason Bennett had fumble recoveries.
“The defense played lights out tonight,” Altishin said. “That was good to see because we definitely had some struggles with that against Stayton. It was just a really good bounceback game to get back in the right column.”
Philomath did have one unfortunate moment in the second half when PHS junior lineman Brayden Felina went down with what appeared to be an ankle injury.
Newport (0-1) and Philomath (1-1) have traditionally been in the same league but the Cubs petitioned down to Class 3A, so the game was a nonconference matchup.
The Warriors will now get a break with a bye week this coming Friday. The team’s next game is scheduled for Sept. 19 at home against North Bend.
Friday, Sept. 5, at Clemens Field, Philomath HS
| Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newport (0-1) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Philomath (1-1) | 14 | 28 | 7 | 0 | 49 |
| Team Statistics | NHS | PHS |
|---|---|---|
| First Downs | 8 | 10 |
| Total Net Yards | 118 | 205 |
| Rushes-Yards | 42-88 | 14-48 |
| Passing | 30 | 157 |
| Punt Returns | 0-0 | 1-52 |
| Kickoff Returns | 6-27 | 1-0 |
| Interception Ret. | 0-0 | 1-72 |
| Comp-Att-Int | 2-5-1 | 10-14-0 |
| Punts | 4-16.3 | 0-0.0 |
| Fumbles-Lost | 2-2 | 0-0 |
| Penalties-Yards | 4-20 | 3-25 |
