Stone Ridge grinds out thrilling overtime victory

There’s nothing exciting about the Stone Ridge Christian offense.

Even for diehard smash-mouth football fans, the Double Wing can be monotonous. Fortunately, style points don’t have anything to do with winning. Stone Ridge proved that once again on Friday night.

In a game that had numerous twists and momentum turns, the one constant was the Knight ground game. Of its 68 rushing plays, Stone Ridge was held to negative yards just twice – both were recovered fumbles – while racking up 436 rushing yards in a 40-34 overtime victory over El Capitan at Stadium ’76.

Shane Casillas (27-225 yards), Jonathan Collazo (18-123) and Austin Rees (18-76) formed a three-pronged attack that each found the end zone. Casillas’ third score of the night proved the difference, punching it in from 10 yards out on the Knights’ first play of overtime.

“We made mistakes that were uncharacteristic,” Stone Ridge coach Anthony De Jager said. “They beat us with a couple big plays, but we stayed steady offensively and moved the ball.

“We felt like if we could keep it close, that our ground game could wear on them. Our o-line was incredible tonight. The played low and fast and beat them to the punch on every single play.”

Dominant as the Knight run game was, El Capitan still had every opportunity to win its first game in school history thanks to the big play.

Things looked bleak with the Gauchos (0-1) trailing by three in the fourth quarter and turning the ball over on downs at their own 27-yard line with 3:39 to play. They got bleaker when Casilla broke free for a 27-yard touchdown run on the very next play to give Stone Ridge (1-0) a 10-point lead.

El Capitan showed no quit, however, answering with a Chase Whitaker (20 of 35 for 324 yards) 80-yard touchdown pass to Elijah Reid (two catches 146 yards, two touchdowns) on the Gauchos’ next play from scrimmage.

The El Cap defense rose to the occasion, following up the score with a huge three-and-out to give the Gauchos the ball right back with 1:45 to play. Whitaker went to work through the air, completing five straight passes to march down to the Stone Ridge 19-yard line. The drive stalled there, however, and Joseph Lema was called on to kick a 36-yard, overtime-forcing field goal with six seconds left.

“We’re an offense that’s built for the big play, but we can’t rely entirely on that,” El Capitan coach Mike Machado said. “We can’t hit a 65-yard run play and then average two yards on the rest of our carries. The offense just didn’t execute where it needs to. Then you thrown in 100-plus yards of penalties and all the drops, and we just didn’t put ourselves in a good enough spot to win.

“Even on that final drive, as well as it went, we had a couple wide open guys that we missed that could have won the game.”

El Capitan settled for the tie and opened overtime with the ball. Da’Vonya Shepherd hauled in a Whitaker pass to give the Gauchos second-and-goal at the 2. Joshua Stewart (13-127 and a touchdown) looked poised to rumble it in on the next play, but a missed block allowed Rees a free shot at him at the one-yard line. The senior linebacker knocked the ball loose and recovered the fumble to end El Cap’s series.

Casillas put the game away on the very next play.

“Our o-line created the holes for me,” Casillas said. “They created the hole enough for me to get through every time and gain yards. I credit the o-line. They did great.

“In overtime we just had to keep fighting. We couldn’t let the (end of the game) get to us. We know what kind of team we are and we know what we’re capable of. We were able to come back and get the win.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2015 at 2:45 AM with the headline "Stone Ridge grinds out thrilling overtime victory."