{"id":26768,"date":"2012-09-13T23:15:11","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T06:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=26768"},"modified":"2017-06-10T10:34:25","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T17:34:25","slug":"temple-city-15-hoover-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=26768","title":{"rendered":"First Down Means First Win for Rams"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nick Starling (left) got the first down that sealed it for the Rams. Quarterback Anthony Valencia is on the right.<\/p><\/div>\n

(Glendale) –\u00a0Nick Starling\u00a0picked up a first down\u00a0on a\u00a0 fourth and two\u00a0run\u00a0with\u00a0two minutes left to\u00a0seal a 15 -14 Temple City win over\u00a0Hoover Thursday night at Moyse Field. Starling rushed for another\u00a0first down\u00a090 seconds later and the Rams ran out the clock to get their\u00a0first win of the year.<\/p>\n

Temple City was faced with the\u00a0fourth down\u00a0at the Hoover\u00a048 with just over two minutes left in the contest up by one. A punt could bury Hoover deep in it’s own end. On the\u00a0other hand if the Rams are stopped Hoover is in good field\u00a0position only needing a\u00a0field goal to win it.<\/p>\n

“It really wasn’t a gutsy call. You look your kids in the eye and say hey\u00a0if we get two here we can walk off and get on the bus,”\u00a0said Temple City Coach Mike McFarland.”I’ll be honest there have been a lot of other calls that I’ve had that were tougher. In that situation, It was about, hey you want to win here it is.”<\/p>\n

Win they did as Starling pounded his way to the first down and the\u00a0Temple City ran out the clock.<\/p>\n

It was all about the ground game all\u00a0night for the Rams. They only threw the ball one time and that play\u00a0resulted in an offensive pass interference call\u00a0on\u00a0TC.\u00a0Starling carried the ball 24 times for 88 yards and Chris Reed\u00a0pounded the rock\u00a017 times for 57 yards and a touchdown.\u00a0Nick\u00a0Kaneko had 12 carries for 84 yards and Diego Arreola had five carries including a seven yard scoring run.<\/p>\n

Temple City marched all the way down to the\u00a0Hoover 24 yard line\u00a0on its first possession,\u00a0but after 16 plays\u00a0a fumble put an end to the drive.\u00a0On the next series\u00a0a punt return set\u00a0up the Rams at the Hoover\u00a045. Eight plays later, Reed\u00a0scored Temple City’s first touchdown of the year on a one yard blast early in the second quarter.\u00a0After a bad snap, Dareece Spratt caught a pass and\u00a0rumbled into the end zone for a two\u00a0point conversion.<\/p>\n

Hoover responded on the next series.\u00a0The Tornadoes went\u00a057 yards in five plays\u00a0capped by a 24 yard scoring pass from\u00a0Brendon Kerr to Zach Hanson. The extra point sailed wide.<\/p>\n

Another Ram fumble set up a go ahead score for\u00a0Hoover. From the Temple City\u00a033, Hoover needed just four plays to score. Hanson\u00a0went in\u00a0on a six yard run for a 12-8 lead.<\/p>\n

Temple City drove down to the Hoover\u00a0one yard line\u00a0just\u00a0before the half but Reed was stonewalled at the goal line\u00a0and the first half clock\u00a0ran out.<\/p>\n

“I knew we would get more shots,”\u00a0McFarland said.<\/p>\n

They did on the first series of the second half\u00a0when the Rams pieced a together an\u00a0eight play, 67 yard drive. Arreola\u00a0went up the gut for a seven yard run to finish\u00a0it. Arreola was a call up from the JV squad.<\/p>\n

“We had him\u00a0early\u00a0but we could tell right away he was a stud.\u00a0So we moved him up to varsity,”\u00a0said JV Coach Riley Saxon.<\/p>\n

A bad snap out of\u00a0the end zone by Temple City\u00a0resulted in a Hoover safety in the fourth quarter but the Ram defense held on the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

Starling’s final first down\u00a0touched off a\u00a0celebration on the\u00a0Ram sideline. It was\u00a0a big win for the green and gold after\u00a0being shut out in its first three games this year and going 1-9 last year.<\/p>\n

“It’s unbelievable. The\u00a0last two years have been a\u00a0struggle. They’re (Hoover)\u00a02-0 and beat a good South Pas team,” McFarland said. “It isn’t about anything other than this. It’s about 30 kids who have been through a lot of losing\u00a0and have never ever quit\u00a0or allowed themselves\u00a0to stop getting better. It’s a credit to the heart of our players and our coaches.”<\/p>\n

Jesse Pina led the Hoover rushing attack with 64 yards on 10 carries.<\/p>\n

Hoover lost its first of the year and falls to 2-1.\u00a0The Rams hope to bring a little momentum into next week’s crosstown battle with Rosemead.<\/p>\n

TC\u00a0 0\u00a0 8\u00a0 7\u00a0 0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a015<\/p>\n

H\u00a0 0\u00a0 12\u00a0 0\u00a0 2\u00a0\u00a0 14<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Glendale) –\u00a0Nick Starling\u00a0picked up a first down\u00a0on a\u00a0 fourth and two\u00a0run\u00a0with\u00a0two minutes left to\u00a0seal a 15 -14 Temple City win over\u00a0Hoover Thursday night at Moyse Field. Starling rushed for another\u00a0first down\u00a090 seconds later and the Rams ran out the clock to get their\u00a0first win of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12816],"tags":[8454,5200,8453,7430,3843,64,8452,8233,6696,102,7949,6162],"class_list":["post-26768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hsfootball","tag-brendan-kerr","tag-chris-reed","tag-diego-arreola","tag-hoover-football","tag-jesse-pina","tag-mike-mcfarland","tag-nick-kaneko","tag-nick-starling","tag-rosemead-football","tag-south-pasadena-football","tag-temple-city-football","tag-zach-hanson"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26768"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26789,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26768\/revisions\/26789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}