By Ron Vrooman
(Montebello) – It looked like an upset was in the making on Friday night, when the visiting Alhambra Moors capitalized on mistakes by the Schurr Spartans to build a 16-0 lead in the second quarter. But instead Schurr regained control and rallied to beat Alhambra 42-22 in Almont League action.
Linebacker Kevin Soto sacked Schurr quarterback Jesse Preciado for a safety to put the Moors ahead, 2-0, late in the opening period. Alhambra then scored touchdowns on an 88-yard fumble return by linebacker Luis Sanchez and an 11-yard run by Cyrus Wu which was set up by Adam Posti’s recovery of a Preciado fumble.
However, the script flipped as soon as the Spartans stopped turning the ball over. Schurr running back Isaiah Candelaria atoned for his own costly fumble by scoring on a two-yard run to cut Alhambra’s margin to 16-7 with just over a minute to go before halftime.
Preciado then led a 28-point outburst by the Spartans in the third quarter which gave them a 35-22 lead enroute to an eventual 20 point victory over the Moors. He threw all three of his touchdown passes during that quarter and ran 34 yards for another score.
Preciado ended up connecting on 12 of 23 passes for a total of 254 yards; his top receiver was Matthew Salazar, who made six catches for 132 yards and two TD’s.
Candelaria was the Spartans’ leading rusher with 12 carries for 96 yards and a touchdown. He also caught four throws from Preciado for a total of 87 yards.
Alhambra quarterback Michael Gonzalez completed only nine of 22 passes for 107 yards, while Sanchez led the Moors’ ground attack with 85 yards on eight carries, including a 66-yard scoring run in the third quarter.
The Spartans’ victory kept them in a first-place tie with the San Gabriel Matadors in the Almont League and lifted their overall record to 4-3. The Moors (1-1 in league and 2-5 overall) fell into a third-place tie with Bell Gardens.
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@ Anonymous: Although my perspective is more distant since I’m not at Alhambra High every day, I don’t think that the head coach’s popularity is an issue. He seems to be well-liked by the players who are currently on the team.
We had something like 44 players who saw at least some action on the varsity during our historic 2019 season. But, that team was heavily laden with seniors, and only about 10 players were going to be seniors the following year. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
I believe we have a slightly larger group of seniors on the team in 2021, but our overall numbers in the program are down. The pandemic is most likely a major factor, although I don’t have the data or anecdotal information to confirm that.
The “perfect storm” attrition-wise hit us last week, when several players were injured during the Schurr game and almost no replacements were available because members of our freshman and JV teams were subject to Covid-19 protocols.
The situation will hopefully improve this week, but we’ve known all along that the conditions would be a little tenuous this season.
@ron why are the football numbers so low? Do kids not like coach Eric? He is on campus there should be more than 26 kids on the team