Notebook: Gustine loses key player for the season. Vomit causes delay in Atwater.

The Gustine High football team will be without one of their defensive leaders for the rest of the season.

According to Reds coach Ronnie LaBry, senior Alex Guerrero broke his collarbone in the second quarter, when he fell awkwardly while be tackled on the sideline after a reception during the Reds’ 17-13 win over Mariposa on Friday night in Mariposa.

“He was running down the sideline, he broke a couple tackles and on one spin move he was tackled and landed on his side,” LaBry said. “He broke his collar bone in two places. It was the 19th play of the game.”

Guerrero is a key piece for the Reds (4-1 overall, 2-0 Southern League.

He was their leading receiver as a tight end before the injury and he led the team with seven sacks from defensive end on defense.

“He was on his way to becoming the Defensive Player of the Year in my opinion,” LaBry said. “He was just a big part of everything. He was our tight end and leading us in receiving until that happened. It’s tough to lose someone like that. He’s a men among kids out there.”

LaBry said his team almost didn’t recover in time after watching Guerrero leave via ambulance. The Reds had to outscore the Grizzlies 10-0 in the fourth quarter to pull out the victory.

Gustine drove 60 yards in the final minute with Reds quarterback Jonathan Martin connecting with Alexis Flores on a 14-yard touchdown for the go-ahead score with 26.6 seconds left on the clock.

“We didn’t shake it off until we were in the fourth quarter,” LaBry said. “I called a time out to rally them up. I said, ‘Hey, look, it’s got to be the next man up. This is football, injuries are going to happen.”

Puke happens

A big part of Atwater’s strategy on Friday night against Central Valley was to go with a quick tempo. Falcons coach Seneca Ybarra wanted his guys to get up to the line of scrimmage quickly and run plays in hopes of tiring out a Hawks team with a smaller roster.

That plan was put on hold in the second quarter when the game was delayed at least 10 minutes when a Central Valley player vomited on the field. The game was stopped until an Atwater High custodian could be found and clean up the mess on the turf.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Ybarra said. “I’ve seen delays for injuries, obviously. Once at Central Catholic there was a delay because we were waiting for a second ambulance to arrive. There was an injury and the first ambulance left and then immediately after there was a second injury.

“I’ve seen kids vomit at practice. When that happens we just move around it. We go to the other side. Most of the time kids run off the field to do it.”

The delay came with the Falcons facing a fourth-and-one situation.

“It definitely effected us,” Ybarra said. “Its’ fourth-and-one and we had a couple situations we tried. We tried the no play, hard count and then we ran around on our punt formation. On both of them they didn’t move. They were fresh.”

Two punts on one play?

Another rare moment in the Atwater-Central Valley game on Friday night saw Falcons punter Alberto Ramos punt twice on one play.

Ramos took the snap on fourth down early in the fourth quarter and had his punt blocked by a Central Valley player. Some how Ramos was able to scoop the ball, find some space on the right side and punt the ball down field.

“I have no clue if you can do that,” Ybarra said. “I wasn’t going to scream don’t do it during the game. It was extremely impressive that Central Valley’s defensive tackle was able to break through three blockers and block the punt. I still haven’t looked it up to see if it was legal.”

There were no flags and the officiating crew didn’t discuss the play.

Dos Palos finally breaks through with a win

After losing an overtime game to Los Banos in the season opener and a five-overtime contest to Roosevelt the following week, the Broncos finally broke through in the win column on Friday with a 43-14 win over previous unbeaten McLane.

Dos Palos went to the ground with running back Ronald Johnson racking up 265 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 18 carries. Isaac Adams added 151 rushing yards and a touchdown on four carries in his first extensive playing time since injuring his shoulder against Roosevelt on Aug. 24.

“We challenged our offensive line all week to step it up,” said Dos Palos coach Kevin Jones. “We probably rushed for over 400 yards as a team. Any time you can do that you’re doing pretty well.”

Adams started the season as the quarterback, but moved to fullback against McLane. Jones and the coaching staff feels he’ll create some mismatches there with his speed.

The Broncos (1-4) are just happy to see the zero go away from their win column.

“It’s huge,” Jones said. “McLane was undefeated and ranked No. 5 in Division 5, which is our division. It was a big game for us. We’ve been playing Division 3 and 4 teams all year long during our preseason. This was a challenge for us to see where we’re at against a team in our division.”

This story was originally published September 22, 2018 at 3:55 PM.