By Tim Peterson
(Pico Rivera) – This won’t go down as one of the greatest games in history. You won’t find it in a football book titled “How to play the game.” To say it was ugly is being too kind. At times it resembled a cat name Frankenstein.
There were six turnovers overall, three by each side, numerous penalties and more miscues than you would see at a flag football game at the park on the Fourth of July. But isn’t that what you would expect after a 15 month absence? The important thing was high school football was back, and in the end El Rancho emerged with a 13-6 win over Whittier in a Del Rio League battle Friday night at Don Memorial Stadium.
Three of the first four possessions ended in turnovers before El Rancho finally broke through late in the first quarter. After an interception by Jorge Villa the Dons had the ball at the Whittier 30. After a pass interference penalty and three plays later Anthony Bonilla scored from two yards out for a 7-0 El Rancho lead at halftime.
Whitter’s offense continued to struggle but late in the third quarter Joseph Alvarez fielded a short El Rancho punt and took it up the near sideline for a 55-yard punt return for a touchdown. The Cardinals went for two and were stopped leaving the score at 7-6.
El Rancho immediately responded with a six-play, 70 yard drive. Bonilla got his second score of the night on an 18-yard TD romp with 1:54 left in the third quarter.
And that was it. Whittier had a shot late in the fourth quarter but a fourth down stop by the Dons at the ten-yard line sealed the deal. The Cards just couldn’t get anything going consistently on offense.
The Dons main attack was on the ground with Bonilla, Villa and quarterback Michael Dominguez. Bonilla had over 100 yards rushing and the two scores.
The Dons, although not a thing of beauty will take the W, and will now face another Del Rio foe La Serna next week.
Medrano sure does magic with those QBs. Best in the area IMO. Addition by subtraction, alright I get what you’re saying. Best of luck to all Del Rio teams.
I hear you brotha. This is the season that almost wasn’t. Good luck to all the teams in the area. Maybe their seasons be injury free and covid free.
Numbers at ER aren’t too bad, where most schools including ER are affected is with freshmen numbers. ER has maybe 20 freshmen therefore they have to take the 30 or so sophomores and put them together with the freshmen. If we could sustain this 40-50 on varsity and take those 40-50 from the Frosh soph team and put them together then numbers will be really good in fall so long as we get our typical 40-50 freshmen class.
Definitely no speed burners, but small hard working kids that love to bang. The QB Dominguez was the JV QB last season, he looks like he didn’t have a shot at 7 on 7, it was expected, reps are needed but there is no time, with a full off season he would’ve once again been another in the long line of excellent Medrano QB’s. As far as the lineman you are asking about, you ever hear about addition by subtraction? Well that’s your answer.
My guess is that all public school football teams are at best 50% of what would have been their pre-covid rosters. I say this because basketball and baseball that are ramping up at the same time and are taking guys and some parents don’t want the kid playing during covid worrying they might bring it home. This is not the time to nit pick about any team. Just appreciate the fact that the boy’s have a chance to play,especially the seniors.
ER definitely looked small and slow out there. But after not playing for so long it is to be expected. They need to start getting those passes going. Where does this QB come from, Don’t remember seeing him before. They are definitely not what we are used to watching, I asked on another post, does anyone have info where that lineman they had, where he transferred to? He was one of the best ones ER had.
Ugly it was, but it served the greater purpose of helping Newsome beat the recall.
Hard to tell if Whittier’s offense was that bad or ER’s defense was that good. Whittier got great field position all night but could barely move the ball. Neither QB could throw to where the receivers were,perhaps both are color blind. Anyway next weeks La Serna game ain’t gonna be pretty. But who cares, it did look a little like high school football.
Definitely not a pretty game, lots of offensive miscues, the Villa & Bonilla tandem just grinds yards out, gotta get the passing game going. The Defense led by Angel Diaz, flies to the ball. On to La Serna.