Football Roundup: Chowchilla lets out some aggression in Madera South rout
Chowchilla coach Alex Pittz described his players as caged animals being let loose.
While the long high school football season often takes its toll on teams come the middle of November, the Redskins are a little fresher than most.
A couple of late drops left Chowchilla with just a nine-game, regular-season schedule and the No. 3 seed in the Central Section Division IV playoffs earned it a first-round bye. The extra rest left the Redskins raring to go as they hosted No. 11 Madera South (4-8) in the quarterfinals on Friday night. That desire showed as Chowchilla scored touchdowns on six of seven possessions in the opening half and cruised from there to a 49-7 victory.
Chowchilla (9-1) will hit the road next week, traveling to No. 2 Golden West of Visalia for a semifinal.
“It was a good night,” Pittz said. “The kids came out hungry. I think the defense was excited about the challenge of trying to stop a player like Jonah (Johnson). Offensively, we added just a few little wrinkles to our formations, like using Justin Cantrell at quarterback, and they seemed to have trouble adjusting to them.”
It was a typical Chowchilla victory, with domination at the point of attack on offense and relentless pressure from the defense.
The Redskins had five different guys rush for scores while racking up 337 rushing yards. Cantrell (4 carries, 92 yards, 2 TDs) and Asa Shields (10-93, 1 TD) led the charge.
The Chowchilla defense forced four turnovers, including a Cantrell interception and a pair of Ronnie Reyes fumble recoveries. The Redskins limited the dual-threat Johnson to 143 total yards and kept him out of the end zone until the second unit took over in the fourth quarter.
“The last two games of the regular season there’s been a big focus of preaching pursuit,” Pittz said. “All our conditioning on Monday is based off of the pursuit I see in film. Our defensive ends contained the pocket. And then our flex linebackers did a great job of working hand in hand with the defensive ends. If they cut the ends, the flex backers flowed over and kept Johnson in the pocket.”
Yosemite 29, Dos Palos 14 in Dos Palos – The Badgers scored 22 unanswered points in the second half to upset the Broncos on Friday in the quarterfinals of the Central Section Division V playoffs.
Tre Walker sent No. 2 Dos Palos (7-5) into the break with momentum, tying the game at 7 with a TD run in the final minute of the first half. Hunter Hogue kept that momentum going, scoring a TD run on the Broncos’ opening possession of the second half to take a 14-7 lead. Yosemite (9-3) returned the ensuing kickoff for a score and never looked back.
This story was originally published November 19, 2016 at 12:53 AM with the headline "Football Roundup: Chowchilla lets out some aggression in Madera South rout."