Fast start helps Manteca roll past Buhach Colony

The Buhach Colony High football team barely had time to settle into their season opener on Saturday night before they were staring up at a 22-point deficit.

Manteca opened the game with an 11-play, 66-yard drive that ended with a touchdown. The Buffaloes then cashed in on an interception and a blocked punt as they turned both Thunder miscues into touchdowns.

Manteca was off and running to a 37-13 win over Buhach Colony at Dave Honey Stadium.

“The thing I said to our guys during our team meeting today was in Week 0, the team that makes the fewest amount of mistakes will likely win the ball game. We just gave a good team too many opportunities.”

Matching up against Manteca’s size up front on both sides of the ball was already going to present a challenge for the Thunder. Setting up the Buffaloes with short fields throughout the first half only make things tougher.

Manteca proved early with its opening drive it could march down the field as six different players carried the ball with Ferrin Manuleleua scoring on a 3-yard touchdown run with 7:21 left in the first quarter. When Buhach Colony was drawn offside on the extra-point attempt, Manteca opted to go for two and Benjamin Rea punched it in to give the Buffaloes an 8-0 lead.

“We have a lot of different players that can make things happen,” said Manteca coach Eric Reis, who improve to 15-0 in season openers as the Buffaloes coach. “We have a multifaceted attack, which is different for us. We’re used to the ground and pound.”

Manteca’s next three drives all started on the Thunder’s half of the field.

Michael Sarmento intercepted a pass from Buhach Colony’s Andrew Morris and returned it to the Thunder 29-yard line midway through the second quarter. Four plays later, Buffaloes quarterback Gino Campiotti found Jose Garcia near the Manteca sideline for a 16-yard touchdown pass to extend the lead to 15-0 with 3:16 left in the first quarter.

A holding penalty helped stall Buhach Colony’s next drive and then Tyler Welch was able to block the punt to set up the Buffaloes just past midfield. Kameron Beamon (105 rushing yards on 12 carries) broke free for a 31-yard run to help set up Seth Owings scored on a 15-yard run to give Manteca a 22-0 lead with 10:33 left in the first half.

“Early in the year you want to take advantage of things like that,” Reis said. “We have a pretty good defense and early on they were able to make some plays.”

The Buffaloes defense wasn’t done as Beamon came down with an interception when Buhach Colony receiver Lavon Wallace fell down. The turnover set up Manteca at the Thunder 37-yard line.

The Buffaloes needed just two plays to score as scored on a 15-yard run to extend the lead to 30-0 with 10:06 left in the second quarter.

“I thought for us to compete tonight we would have to be able to compete with their size and experience in the trenches,” Navarra said. “I think they taught us a bit of a lesson tonight. Hopefully it’s something we can learn from going forward.”

One of the few bright spots offensively for the Thunder was Alex Andrade, who broke free for a 66-yard touchdown run in the second quarter to get Buhach Colony on the board at 30-7 with 9:53 left.

The Thunder’s Jon Buttrey recovered an onside kick to set up the Buhach Colony offense at the Manteca 32-yard line. When the drive stalled inside the 10-yard line, Zachary Sawyer was brought on for a field-goal attempt. However, the snap was high and Clayton Abram tried to throw a pass but it was picked off by James Thomas and returned 95 yards for a touchdown to give the Buffaloes a 37-7 lead going into the half.

If there was a positive note for the Thunder it was the defense holding Manteca scoreless in the second half. The bad news was Wallace was ejected for throwing a punch midway through the fourth quarter and will have to sit out the Thunder’s next game against Enochs.

Buhach Colony’s Irik Dobbins scored the only touchdown with an 11-yard run midway through the fourth quarter that cut the lead to 37-13. Dobbins finished with 71 yards on eight carries. Andrade led the team with 83 yards on seven carries.

“In the second half we challenged our guys,” Navarra said. “Manteca is a physical team. We know they’re experienced. We challenged them to play as physical. We can’t dictate the outcome, but we can come out and compete. We can set the tone for the next nine games.”

This story was originally published August 27, 2016 at 11:44 PM with the headline "Fast start helps Manteca roll past Buhach Colony."