Lindsay defensive tackle Jose Palos entered the locker room after practice earlier this week and saw Strathmore running back Jesse Soria’s photo on display.

Without further encouragement, Palos swiped the photo off the wall and ate it.

“Pepe just swallowed it,” Lindsay coach Robert Hurtado said. “That’s what they wanted to do to them — eat ‘em up.”

Palos and the rest of the Cardinal defense indeed swallowed up all signs of Strathmore’s patented run game, limiting 1,000-yard rusher Soria to just 61 for the night in a 21-7 upset at Strathmore on Friday.

Going into the game, the Cardinals, at 1-5, weren’t given much of a chance against the Spartans, who were 3-3 and hungry for a ‘W’ after dropping two straight. 

But this was a rivalry game. And, as everyone in Lindsay and Strathmore knows, records go out the window.

All it took was 14 seconds for Soria to set the tone by returning the opening kickoff nearly 90 yards and a touchdown.

“We talked about that — setting the tempo,” Spartans coach Jeromy Blackwell said. “We set the tempo and then, where’s the rest of the effort?”

That would be all the points Strathmore could muster for the night against a lock-down Cardinal defense that rarely let them get beyond the 30-yard line.

“Our defense really stepped it up,” Hurtado said. “We knew where (Soria) was going and everybody swarmed the football. That was the key to shutting him down — you can’t stop him with one guy.”

It was Lindsay’s Jonathan Duarte, not Soria, who proved the better running back of the night. Duarte hammered and pounded his way up and down the field for 207 yards on 30 carries, scoring all three of Lindsay’s touchdowns.

“He was banged up and we weren’t sure if he was going to play,” Hurtado said. “He runs it hard and it’s very difficult to stop him.”

If Duarte was banged up before the game, he was totaled after it. Despite the gash on his left elbow, he certainly didn’t look the part because he said he was on such a high.

“All I did was just run,” Duarte said. “It was so intense, as soon as the game ended, we were just so happy for our second win.”

Duarte said his motivation was to play for the rivalry’s game ball, which is held in possession of the winning team each year until they play for it again.

“I knew from the start we were gonna win,” he said. “No matter who scored the touchdown, I didn’t care. We did it as a team, the Cardinals.”

Duarte scored Lindsay’s first touchdown to tie the game early in the second quarter after the Cardinals recovered a botched punt return near the Spartan 15-yard line by top Strathmore receiver Serafin Moreno, who had a game-high seven catches for 62 yards.

Duarte took it from there and scored on a two-yard scurry up the middle.

Duarte then opened the second half by answering Soria with a 14-second, 80-yard kickoff return of his own.

“I wasn’t gonna run that one back,” Duarte said, “but coach asked me to.”

After Duarte scored the final touchdown of the game with 4:45 left in the fourth quarter, Strathmore tried to no-huddle its way back into the game, which resulted in a pair of interceptions by Gabriel Rubalcava and Adam Gamboa, who finished 5-for-15 for 31 yards passing on offense.

Spartans quarterback Able Valle threw 12-for-21 and 108 yards despite the picks.

Strathmore struggled to move the ball up the field due to a number of holding penalties that offset otherwise big runs from Soria and Jose Zavala, who was limited to just 12 yards on the ground.

“Jack Fertig always said, ‘The greatest tragedy in life is unrealized potential,’” Blackwell said. “If you’re sick, or you die, then that’s sad. But the worst is when it’s a lack of effort.

“I don’t make excuses for the ‘L’ on my record — they played the better football game,” he continued. “We’ve just gotta figure out our legacy.”