Foothillers speed past Mustangs with big plays

By ECS Staff
Updated: September 5, 2015

Tammy Ryan

By Mark Meadows

© East County Sports.com

EL CAJON (9-5-15) — The Grossmont High Foothillers (2-0) hosted the Otay Ranch Mustangs (1-1) on Friday (Sept. 4) in El Cajon and rewarded their faithful with a thrilling 28-27 win.

That the Foothillers would put up points wouldn’t surprise anyone. That Otay Ranch would match them point for point probably would. But it was an extra point that would eventually be the difference.

It looked like a long night was ahead for the Mustangs. Grossmont received the opening kickoff and on the 3rd play from scrimmage and from their own 25-yard line Foothiller QB JARED REDFIELD (10-27 117 yards) scrambled to his left and found wideout DOMINQUE GUEVARA for 75 yards and a 7-0 lead with just 48 seconds lapsed.

The two teams exchanged 3 non-descript drives each until Otay Ranch broke through on a short 1 yard TD plunge to cap a seven play drive and make it 7-7 with 11:29 left in the 2nd quarter.

Grossmont was not interested in 7 play drives though. With HUNTER GAINES now directing the Foothiller attack he looked to his right and decided it was a good idea to get KHALEED DAVIS the ball. He would be right. Davis faked
inside and bounced to his right and tore down the sideline for 70 yards and paydirt.

“We noticed that Otay played off a little on the outside”, Davis said. “I was just looking for an opening and found one”.

But Otay didn’t drive up the freeway from Chula Vista for the Hillers to have all the fun. The Mustangs would later answer on another 7 play drive culminating with a 2-yard TD run. The extra point was no good and the score remained 14-13 with 6:37 left in the half.

With just a handful of seconds remaining in the second quarter and on their 13 yard line, Grossmont looked content to head to the locker room up by 1 point. JAKE HARR had other ideas. On the first play from scrimmage, Haar burst through the line and down the left sideline. In the blink of an eye, Haar was flipping the ball to the referee in the Otay end zone. 15.1 seconds before the half and Grossmont led 21-13.

And it was just getting good.

Otay Ranch is no pushover. They went on a mammoth 17 play drive. Mixing the pass and run equally and converting on a 3rd down and 14, the Mustangs ate the 3rd quarter clock up and went a minute and 35 seconds into the 4th quarter before scoring on a 4th and goal from the 1-yard line. Down 21-19, Otay indeed converted on the two point conversion and the game was knotted at 21-21 with 10:25 left in the game.

It remained that way until only two and a half minutes were left on the clock. Otay Ranch then received the Grossmont punt at their own 30-yard line. A highly charged Foothiller crowd was suddenly silent as the Mustangs returned the punt 70 yards to take a 27-21 lead, pending the PAT. But the Otay kicker pushed the kick to the right, and the Hillers had life.

But with 2:18 on the clock, Grossmont needed to find a way to march 66 yards and kick an extra point if they wanted a victory. They decided to go back to a familiar tandem: Gaines and Davis.

On an almost identical play to their earlier touchdown, Gaines got Davis (6 catches, 154 yards 2 TD) the ball in space on the right side of the formation. Davis broke inside and popped out the Grossmont sideline again, this time breaking the last 20 yards back to the middle for a 66-yard TD reception.

“We just want to get the ball into the hands of our playmakers, said Gaines. “Tonight it was Khaleed.” Gaines finished 4 for 8 for 145 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Grossmont head coach TOM KARLO was certainly pleased with the outcome.

“The offense didn’t really click tonight”, he said. “But I told our team, there are no bad wins. If we score more points than the other guys, we’ll take that every time”.

Grossmont is off next week before taking on Hilltop High in Chula Vista on Sept. 18.