The first round of DII league play kicked off Saturday in Southern California. The new-look league includes two teams moving down from DI and one moving up from DIII.

In perhaps the biggest surprise of the weekend, Ventura, who finished third in SoCal’s DIII last season, beat Santa Barbara, who won two games in DI last year, 7-5 in Santa Barbara.

The Grunions scored the game’s first try, but missed the conversion. Ventura County’s Paul Gagliardi scored the leveling try, and Jeff Dull slotted the game-winning conversion.

Defending DII champs the Old Aztecs won their 24^th straight SoCal game, 32-0, on the road against Kern County. The last time the San Diego club lost a regular season league game was March 2009.

Huntington Beach, the other team descending to DII this year, escaped their home match against Pasadena with a 22-19 win. Given that Pasadena finished second in DII last year, the Unicorns appear to have picked up a quality win.

Elsewhere, San Fernando Valley beat Eagle Rock 19-5 and the NC Gurkhas beat Riverside 25-19.