No one was on the receiving end of more TD passes this year than Jaymin Sarono, but Saturday he did something he had never done before. John Lujan | SL

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Lihue, KAUAI — No one was on the receiving end of more touchdown passes this season than Jaymin Sarono, but Saturday's Life Champion Senior Bowl provided the chance to do something he had never done before.

With a little over five minutes left in the third quarter — and Sarono's Black team holding on to a 21-14 lead over Team White — the 5-foot-10, 185-pound Kapolei senior found the end zone on a 6-yard run out of the backfield.

On the scoring play, Sarono aligned to the left of quarterback Kurt Napoleon (Kapaa) in the shotgun. Fullback Steveni Lombard (Kahuku) was set to the right of Napoleon and served as a lead blocker for Sarono, who took the handoff and ran wide to the right side of the field. He cut inside of one defender and muscled his way through four other would-be tacklers before finding the end zone.

"With coach Vinny (Passas), in his twins (formation) the slot goes back there, so either me or Ronson (Young) would be back there," Sarono said. "It was the play to the right, so that was mine, so it was my play and when I went back there I just made the best of it."

Sarono was well aware of the fact that he had never rushed for a touchdown before.

"That's why I was telling the boys on the side that I never did score anything out of the backfield — everything was throws — so that was something new to me and it felt good," Sarono said.

That score — which came off a Kainoa Davis (Maui) interception for Team Black — gave it a 27-14 lead.

Davis, who was given the Tyson Alualu Award as the game's defensive MVP, also intercepted a pass to halt Team White's previous drive, but the offense failed to do anything with it and went three-and-out.

Passas, the longtime Saint Louis quarterbacks' coach, served as co-head coach for the winning Black team. He was happy to see his team recycle Davis' second pick into points.

"Whenever you get a pick, we want to consider that as a fourteen-point turnaround, or two possessions that we want to capitalize on and we were fortunate that we were able to capitalize on it on at least one of them," Passas said.

On a team with so many standout receivers — count Moanalua's Ryan Ramones, Saint Louis' Ronson Young, Konawaena's Kamakana Ching, Mililani's Andrew Valladares, Farrington's Kingston Moses-Sanchez and Sarono's Kapolei teammate, Wyatt Perez, among them — the passes and repetitions were spread around.

Sarono, who caught 114 passes for 1,120 yards and 22 touchdowns this season, ended up getting more rushing attempts (2) than pass receptions (1) Saturday.

Stats aside, Sarono said the he was appreciative of the chance to showcase his talents in front of more than 20 college coaches in practices leading up to the game and the game itself.

"It was good. They got to see how we practice and our work ethic, so it was good for us and great exposure," said Sarono, who said he is still weighing his options for the next level. "Nothing has really caught my eye yet and I haven't caught anyone's eye yet; I am just waiting patiently."