Santa Clara High proudly unveiled its 2006 Frontier League championship banner at halftime of its Friday night matchup with Villanova Prep.

Call it a whetting of the appetite for the entree to come.

Santa Clara satisfied its hunger for back-to-back league championships, getting 181 yards rushing and two touchdowns from Cierre Wood on its way to finishing off visiting Villanova, 40-3.

Santa Clara (7-1-1, 4-0) will earn the No. 1 seed from the Frontier League and a first-round game at home in the CIF-Southern Section Mid-Valley Division playoffs next week.

"We are hoping to still be playing football on Thanksgiving," said Santa Clara coach Fran Fredette. "Hopefully we can get that first-round game out of the way."

Aside from the championship, Wood tied the school record for career touchdowns set by Kwinn Knight in 1989 with 52. The junior running back tied the mark with a 54-yard touchdown run with 1:13 to play before halftime.

"We expected that of him," said Fredette. "He has really matured from last year physically, and he is seeing the field so much better. He runs hard and is not just a flashy-dashy type guy."

Santa Clara struck early. Villanova (2-8, 0-4) attempted an onside kick on the opening kickoff, but the ball failed to travel 10 yards, and Santa Clara took over at the Villanova 49. Five plays later, Dyrell Lackey punched in a 5-yard touchdown run to give Santa Clara an 8-0 lead 1:57 into the game.

Villanova started showing signs of life on the following drive, running nine plays for 36 yards to set up a 37-yard field goal from Mike Hellmuth to make the score 8-3 at the 5:30 mark of the first quarter.

Villanova's defense then stopped Santa Clara in its own territory, recovering a fumble from Santa Clara quarterback Randi Vines on the 24-yard line. Hellmuth completed a 28-yard pass on a fake punt to Will Greenway on fourth-and-seven to give Villanova possession in Santa Clara territory.

But then Villanova unraveled.

Santa Clara forced Villanova to punt, but the snap went over Hellmuth's head and Santa Clara's David Ortiz recovered and returned it to the Villanova 4. Wood capitalized on an easy 4-yard touchdown run a play later to give Santa Clara a 15-3 lead with 10:52 to play in the second quarter.

After a Villanova punt, Santa Clara took over and engineered an 11-play drive into Villanova territory. But just as Villanova seemed to have the drive stalled, Vines threw a 33-yard touchdown pass to Louie Contreras on fourth-and-17 to give Santa Clara a 2 lead with 3:31 left in the half.

"We were in a position to punt and only be down by five at halftime," said Villanova coach John Muller. "You can't give that team any momentum."

"We were not quite focused at the beginning," said Fredette. "But we took advantage and were lucky to get to play everyone."

Wood polished off the half with his 54-yard score to make it 29-3. The Santa Clara star needed only 12 carries to amass his final yardage, and broke off runs of 28, 32, 33, and 54 yards en route to help him get there.

"We tried to crowd the box and bring the safeties up to stop him," said Muller. "But one breakdown will kill you. We executed well until third down."

Santa Clara's defense recorded five sacks and Lackey had an interception in the third quarter. Villanova quarterback Jarrod Arbuckle was harrassed all night, finishing 6 of 16 for 50 yards.