By Joe Torosian
(La Canada)—The Temple City Rams came, saw and conquered the La Canada Spartans, 33-13, on Friday night in a Week Nine, Rio Hondo League, match.
The victory improved the Rams to 5-3 and, coupled with Monrovia’s defeat of San Marino; they will face the Wildcats with a chance to win a share of the league title.
“Our first team meeting of the year, one of our main team goals was to win a league championship,” said TC HC, Riley Saxon. “And now we just to have a great week of practice and preparation and see what happens next week. These boys have been through so much in their careers already; I love that they finally get to see success and see their true potential.”
Leading the way with flurry of big plays for the Rams was quarterback Justin Bowman. Bowman finished with 201 yards passing and three touchdowns. He also rushed for 101 yards and another score.
The Rams didn’t score until the second quarter, and then they kept on scoring. After the Spartan defense was saying aloud that Temple City trust its quarterback to throw the ball, Bowman then went 31-yards to Daniel Centeno for the game’s first score.
Five minutes later, Bowman went 41-yards to Isaiah Cassillas to make it a 13-0 contest.
With 2:34 to play in the half, LC quarterback, Eric Helbing, capped a 75 yard drive with a 15-yard sprint to the end zone.
Following the kickoff Temple City took over at its own 19 with 2:27 left in the quarter. Two plays later, Bowman fired his third touchdown pass of the first half, hitting Centeno who crossed from one side of the field to the other to reach paydirt.
The Rams led 19-7 at the break and started the second half with a 7-play, 57 yard drive that Bowman finished with a 1-yard push across the goal line.
Late in the fourth, the Rams Keefe Irsjad scored on a 7-yard run.
“We came out flat, but I thought our boys dealt with the adversity and really responded well in the second half,” said Saxon. “Have to give a ton of credit to Isaiah Cassillas and Daniel Centeno; they made big plays to give us the lead and really pick up our intensity and effort.”
La Canada added a late score after Tobias Humphrey caught a pass down the sideline and fumbled. The ball was picked up Elijah Carruthers and carried in for a touchdown.
The loss dropped the Spartans to 0-9. They close out their season next week against Crean Lutheran in Irvine.
Temple City Offensive Line:
LT: Daniel Rabine, LG: Christopher Alvarez, C: Joseph Lopez, RG: Devan Lopez, RT: Sean Bacheller
La Canada Offensive Line:
LT: John Woodhouse, LG: Eugene Hong, C: Jung Ho Kim, RG: Derek Albanese, RT: Liyu Sun
Cute story.
Sooooo… What you’re saying is that Riley WAS the staff in the past, and that most of the starters WERE in fact starters last year as well.
Got it.
Carry on.
This goes out to Grim…. since you and I know how much TC football means to you, I read on here that you were thinking that the cupoboards were going to be bare over at M-Town, Not true at all, We have some very special athletes that are going to be coming up the ranks in the next couple of years added to the already expanding team we already have. Although the past few seasons have been rough on these kids they have stayed committed as have their parents. Sure we have had some defections that could have really help us (Montes- LaSalle Freshman) (Zamora-Cathedral Freshman) but for the most part the kids that did stick around will be gaining some even better competitors in the coming years. You may have seen this kid last season on the Freshman squad although a bit small in stature, given a year or so he will be eating up the gridiron especially in the RHL. See you guy’s on Fri-night
Just talked to my son, he said Saxon didn’t coach last year and only coached QB’s the year before.
With the castenada’s, Saxon coached the freshmen (now seniors) and ran his own offense.
My son would also like me to tell you that you have no idea what you’re talking about in regards to the other coaches teaching the fundamentals.
Riley was on those previous staffs. I fail to see your point.
Looking at maxpreps, it seems many starters WERE in fact Jrs and sophomores last year.
Nice try anonymous, but the previous coaching staffs did NOT lay any fundamentals down. They, especially the Castanedas, Took the program back several steps.
The only schedule switch this year from last year to this was dropping South Hills and adding Gab… get your facts straight. 1-8 to 5-3. That’s not just a one game difference.
It’s great that the Rams are winning and Coach Saxon is doing a great job……with that said it takes at least 3 years for a team or a new coach to make a difference… and if you look back, Coach Saxon had been on both the previous coaches staff and was these current players Freshman coach under Casteneda…. both staffs prior had forged some pretty good fundamentals and helped to get them where they are today…….
There are also some lower level coaches and even players I see on the sideline coaching this group up that were coached under both prior staffs….. Coach Saxon deserves a lot of credit but one should consider the schedule was set up to help them succeed this season (Gab, SG) and most of the players that are shining now on Friday night started/or played at the varsity level when they were taking their lumps as Sophomores…point is having a head coach on campus like Coach Saxon is very valuable and some stability in the program goes along way. We can only hope he can keep the Rams rolling and gain some experience both in coaching and on his staff but the unfortunate fact is West San Gabriel Football will still be dominated by the private schools- Cathedral (Several TC kids on that team) LaSalle, SF even Maranatha and more established and experienced coaching staffs (Arroyo, SM, Arcadia even Monrovia).
Good luck to the Rams and Coach Saxon and beat the Wildcats.
Congrats to TC! Boy oh boy… I think they went through 3-4 coaching changes in the last 3-4 years. if they don’t keep Saxon then the administration should be fired.
Boston 3.
I’ve always been a Bowman to Centeno fan