By Ron Vrooman <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The San Gabriel Matadors defeated Alhambra, 32-11, last Friday night to win the Tri-City Championship for the fourth straight season. San Gabriel had taken its first step toward securing the football title for the Alhambra Unified School District by beating Mark Keppel, 33-10, a week earlier.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
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Quarterback Efren Torres, who was a perfect nine-for-nine for 97 yards against the Moors, threw two touchdown passes and scored on a one-yard keeper to lead the Matadors to a 19-3 halftime advantage. Alhambra didn’t get on the scoreboard until Nelson Gutierrez kicked a 30-yard field goal as time expired at the end of the second quarter.\u00a0 \u00a0Any hope for a second-half comeback by the Moors was quickly extinguished as turnovers by quarterback Bryan Leonard\u2014-an interception and an errant pitchout that was recovered by the Matadors\u2014-enabled San Gabriel to build a 32-3 lead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Matadors scored their two insurance touchdowns on runs by tailback Adam Mascorro, who ended up carrying the ball 25 times for a total of 167 yards.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alhambra got its only touchdown on a seven-yard run by tailback Halen Tsang with 5:20 left in the game. Leonard then ran for a two-point conversion to give the Moors their final points for the night. Tsang rushed for 85 yards in 13 carries, while Leonard completed nine of 22 passes for 95 yards, with the one interception.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
San Gabriel rolled up 334 yards from scrimmage, compared to 198 yards for Alhambra. The Matadors gained 237 of their yards on the ground.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
San Gabriel not only spoiled Alhambra’s homecoming, but also knocked the Moors out of playoff contention while greatly improving its own chances of reaching the postseason. The Matadors (2-2 in the Almont League and 3-6 overall) are now tied with the Montebello Oilers for third place, and they will play the Oilers this week with a probable playoff berth on the line.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having won two straight games after a 1-6 start, the Matadors will have momentum on their side when they meet a Montebello team that has been crushed in consecutive games by Bell Gardens and Schurr. The upcoming game between Bell Gardens and Schurr, which are both undefeated in league play, will decide the Almont League championship.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the Moors (0-4 in league and 1-8 overall) are still searching for an on-the-field win this season. They will get their last chance to score that victory this Thursday night, when they’ll go on a short road trip to take on winless Keppel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Ron Vrooman The San Gabriel Matadors defeated Alhambra, 32-11, last Friday night to win the Tri-City Championship for the fourth straight season. San Gabriel had taken its first step toward securing the football title for the Alhambra Unified School District by beating Mark Keppel, 33-10, a week earlier.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12816,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hsfootball","category-high-school-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86485,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86484\/revisions\/86485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}