Merced comeback falls short against Clovis North

Winning isn’t easy.

Merced High coach Rob Scheidt hopes his team can learn that lesson before it’s too late.

The Bears (1-3) couldn’t overcome three big first-half mistakes that led to 21 points for Clovis North as the Broncos withstood a second-half surge by Merced for a 38-35 win on Thursday night at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

“My evaluation of this team is it’s a good football team,” Scheidt said. “But here’s the but, people think winning is easy. That’s the problem, it’s not easy.

“You have to take it one play at a time and that starts at the beginning of the game. You have to learn how to do it. It doesn’t matter how good you are. Against Edison, I felt we learned how to win.”

Clovis North opened up a 31-14 lead at the half with the help of three second-quarter touchdowns which came on a 75-yard interception return by linebacker Jay Vidinoff, a 9-yard touchdown pass from Jeremy Miller to Chris Henell — which came after Merced muffed a punt inside the Broncos 40-yard lin – a 45-yard punt return for a score by Andrew Tockey.

“That’s 21 points we gave them,” Scheidt said. “A pick six, a muffed punt and the punt return. We’re a directional kicking team. The punt was supposed to go left and it goes down the middle.”

The Bears responded in the second half as the defense, which struggled to get off the field in the first half, starting getting stop after stop.

Merced stripped the ball from Clovis North running back Jason Lee on the second play of the third quarter and Merced’s Jacob Busko pounced on it.

Four plays later, Jake Foss hooked up with A.J. Stewart for a 22-yard touchdown to cut the lead to 31-21. It was the second touchdown connection between Foss and Stewart in the game. Stewart finished with six catches for 141 yards.

“I told our guys we can’t dwell on the past,” Stewart said. “You have to look forward to the next play. We played soft in the first half and I told our guys that. Our defense played tough and physical in the second half and they stepped up and helped us out a lot.”

While the Merced defense held the Broncos (2-2) scoreless in the third quarter, the Bears offense stalled twice in the red zone and turned the ball over on downs.

The Bears managed to finish off their first drive in the fourth quarter as Ulonzo Gilliam, who missed most of the first half with an injured right shoulder, scored on a 2-yard run to cut the Broncos’ lead to 31-28 with 8:41 left in the game.

Clovis North appeared to put the game away when Lee hurdled over Merced safety Paul Scoggins en route to a 30-yard touchdown run that extended the Broncos’ lead to 38-28 with 4:33 left.

“I saw their last man and I saw him duck his head,” said Lee, who finished with 160 yards and two touchdowns on 18 carries. “I just jumped at the last second. It was a natural reaction.”

Merced was still alive after Scoggins responded by returning the ensuing kickoff 90 yards for a score by zig-zagging his way down the field around tacklers. The Broncos’ lead was 38-35 with 4:01 left.

Clovis North was able to get two first downs to run out the clock and hold on to the victory.

“Our guys stepped up and played really well,” Scheidt said. “I thought they were emotionally down at halftime. I told them it’s a football. You’re doing something you love. We can comeback, we just have to do it one play at a time. That’s what we did, we got back in it, but we left some points on the board there in the second half.”

This story was originally published September 24, 2015 at 11:12 PM with the headline "Merced comeback falls short against Clovis North."