Golden Valley quarterback honors late grandmother with stellar game in rout of Pitman
Five years ago, on the day his grandmother was buried, Golden Valley quarterback Eleazar Garza, then a youth football player, scored six touchdowns in her honor.
Friday night, Garza again wanted to do something special.
The 6-foot, 180-pound senior delivered.
Garza scored two rushing touchdowns, threw for another and picked off a pass on defense as the Cougars crushed Pitman 54-15 for the first-ever victory over the Pride at Joe Debely Stadium.
“I felt like I had to do something tonight,” said Garza. “I feel like she’s always looking down, watching over me.”
If so, Maria Garza, whom the quarterback called Grandma Carmen, must’ve liked what she saw, as the Cougars raced out to a 34-0 first-half lead.
Golden Valley’s opening drive of the contest resulted in a punt, but it was a beauty. Jonathan Gomez-Roldan pinned Pitman on its own 1. After three cautious plays, the Pride kicked the ball out of their own end zone and into the hands of Jonah White, who fielded the ball at the 30 and scampered untouched to make it 6-0. Gomez-Roldan’s PAT made it 7-0 with 7:48 remaining in the opening stanza.
“I’ve always been a big special teams guy,” said Cougars head coach Rick Martinez. “All three phases — offense, defense and special teams — are important.”
After special teams took care of the first score, defense helped set up the next.
On Pitman’s ensuing possession, which started at the 35, Garza intercepted Pitman QB Drew Walker at the 40 and ran 27 yards to the 13. Garza then scampered in on the first play of the drive to make it 13-0. The PAT was no good.
Pitman’s defense stiffened and forced Golden Valley to punt on its next possession, but Walker was picked off again, this time by White, who raced 58 yards for the score, making it 20-0 after Gomez-Roldan’s PAT.
“We came in here and took care of business,” said White. “We played hard tonight.”
Garza made it 27-0 when he raced in from 40 yards out on fourth-and-3 with 2:52 to play in the first half.
After forcing a Pitman punt, and getting the ball back with 55.7 seconds, GV needed just 33 second to score when Garza hit Ethain Vang for a 25-yard gain, then capped the drive with an 18-yard flip to Delbert Davis, making it 34-0.
“That’s a really good team over there,” said Reza. “(Garza) and (Smith) are special and they’ve got some really big guys. They’re going to make some noise in their league.”
After a bye this coming week, the Pride (1-3) travel to take on Oak Ridge (El Dorado Hills), then open Central California Athletic League play the following week against crosstown rival Turlock in the annual Harvest Bowl.
“We’ve got some heavy, heavy competition coming up,” said Reza. “We’ve got to get better in a hurry.”
Golden Valley had three second-half TDs — Jahkylle Smith (19 carries, 133 yards) had touchdown runs of 1 and 24 yards and Jaden Alvarez returned an interception 90 yards for a score in the game’s final minute.
“I just back-pedaled, broke down, caught it about knee-high and took it to the house,” Alvarez said. “I’m glad I could contribute for my teammates.”
Smith was bottled up for much of the first half, totaling just 20 yards on nine rush attempts. But in the second half, White took advantage of the Pride’s tiring defense — it was 89 degrees at kickoff with 25 percent humidity — and totaled 113 yards on 11 second-half totes.
“I was just trying to be patient, really,” said Smith. “They forced us to use other parts of our team and I’m glad we showed that everybody can contribute.”
The Pride’s first TD came with 3:26 to play in the third quarter when Joey Stout capped a seven-play, 74-yard drive with his 6-yard burst into the end zone. Jonnathan Delgado’s PAT made the deficit 41-7.
Stout carried the ball 16 times for 106 hard-earned yards.
The Pride added another when Dylan Freeman hauled in a pass from Drew Walker from 16 yards out that, with the two-point conversion, made it 48-15.