Sonora proves it belongs, wins big over Escalon in TVL opener on road

Escalon football coach Andrew Beam likely didn’t have the Cougars throwing for two touchdowns anywhere on his pregame plan. But sometimes you have to completely scrap the plan and go with something different.

The Cougars did that out of necessity when starting quarterback Logan Huebner hurt his knee just a few plays into their Trans-Valley League opener against visiting Sonora.

Escalon struck first, scoring twice in the second quarter and taking a seven point lead into halftime, but the ground and pound of Sonora’s four- man rushing attack of Brody Speer, Eli Ingalls, Cash Byington and Tommy Sutton proved to be too much.

In total, the quartet rushed for 301 yards and three total touchdowns in a dominant 35-14 win to kick off their first season in the TVL.

“Sonora’s a really good football team. I’ve got nothing but praise for those guys, those players and those coaches,” Beam said. “When you lose your quarterback on the third or fourth play, you’re going to be hindered, but I’m proud of the way our backup came in. He hadn’t taken a snap all year.”

Friday’s matchup was a rematch of the 2022 Sac-Joaquin Section Division V championship game which Escalon won 35-34. Sonora has a lineman who played center on that 2022 runner-up team and Escalon’s Ryan Lewis is the only player who contributed on varsity two years ago. A handful of players were upgraded from JV to varsity for the postseason but did not see consistent playing time.

Proving they belong

Sonora always believed it belonged in the TVL. Friday night the Wildcats got to show it against one of the league’s best.

An onslaught of three-, four-, five-, six-yard carries eventually wore the Cougars down. After being held to just seven first half points, the Sonora offense exploded for 28 in the second half.

“If you get three and a half yards a play, you’re going to get a first down every single time,” Sonora coach Kirk Clifton said with a smile.

The Wildcats have a ton of players who spent last season as backups. They saw some playing time, but spent the majority of the season as understudies for the team’s quarterback, three leading rushers and defensive stars. This season, they took center stage. Young, inexperienced and hungry to prove themselves. None of the Wildcats’ leading rushers recorded more than 25 carries last season and defensively they break down like this: seven juniors, two sophomores and two seniors. Offensively, they have just four senior starters.

“They’re very competitive kids, they compete with each other in anything,” Clifton said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re a sophomore, junior or whatever, they want to compete and get better. We’re going to get better because we make a lot of dumb mistakes. … In the first half we were a little shaky. I told them, ‘Guys, just calm down’ and we did and it was a good result.”

Sonora scored their lone first half touchdown on a Byington 91 yard touchdown run. The Wildcats ran away with the game in the second half, scoring touchdowns on each of their first four possessions.

Escalon’s second half struggles

Beam says he does not know when Huebner will be available. He added he doesn’t think it’s very good based on what he heard from the trainer.

“When Huebner went down, we lose two thirds of our playbook. He’s about 10-15 carries a game,” he said. “The gameplan revolves around him.”

Donovan Martinez entered the game on the Cougars’ third possession and led the team on a scoring drive. On fourth down, Escalon sent a low punt past the line of scrimmage that was touched by a Sonora player. The Cougars recovered and on the ensuing play, Martinez completed his first varsity pass, a 46-yard touchdown to Chase Cummings. On the next possession, he found Dylan Ball for his second touchdown pass of the game.

“He was really good on anything under center and anything in the pass game,” Beam said.

Nobody had more of an impact for the Cougars than a freshman: Dylan Ball.

The lights of his first varsity TVL game were not too bright as he recovered a fumble, intercepted a pass in the end zone and caught a nine-yard touchdown pass.

But the Cougars’ offense went stagnant in the second half after scoring on consecutive first-half drives. They punted on three second half drives and fumbled on the other.

“We didn’t sustain drives,” Beam said. “We couldn’t run the ball, couldn’t stay ahead of the chains. When you don’t control the ball against a team like Sonora, they’re gonna make you pay. And they did.”

No week off in the TVL

Sonora will enjoy this win while Escalon will check on the status of its quarterback, regroup and get back to the drawing board Monday.

The Wildcats face another 4-0 team next week when Orestimba comes to town for homecoming.

“I’ll enjoy it until midnight,” Clifton said. “Then at 12:01, we start thinking about Orestimba.”

The Cougars know now that they won’t sweep through their league opponents like last season and sometimes, Beam says, the toughest thing to do is convince high school athletes that one loss isn’t the end of the world. They travel to Hilmar next week then play at Hughson in a matchup of defending section champions.

“It’s hard for young kids to see there’s a lot of football left,” Beam said. “We’ve got six more games and at the end of the day, nobody’s going to feel sorry for you. You’re the defending TVL champs. … All we can do is come to work on Monday. That’s what we told the kids. Buckle your chinstrap, go to work and we’re going to come back out here next Friday and try to get rid of this taste in our mouth.”

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