INLAND FIELDHOUSE

PHOTO by MILKA SOKO

RIVERSIDE — The Temecula Valley-Riverside Norte Vista Week 3 varsity football game on Friday, Sept. 13, 2019, was a little surprising until it wasn’t.

For Temecula Valley, a touchdown on its first offensive series was not an indication of just how tough the game would be. The Golden Bears running game, humming to the tune of nearly 200 yards and three TDs per game, was halted by halftime and never really distinguished itself. Senior QB Zach Cutka was very accurate, and came up with a big throw when his team needed it most, slinging it over the top to Abe Flores for the game-winner with under 1 minute left in the game.

Temecula Valley head coach Bert Esposito, “We saw that on film. Every time they rolled down a linebacker that guy was vertical open. It seems like we were saving it for when we needed it, and we needed it. It’s hard to be more ahead than 4-and-0, but obviously tonight we didn’t not play well offensively at all. I thought the defense played well for the most part, but offensively we were not very good, so we’ll have plenty to work on. I felt defensively, we played really, really good. I was pleased with that part of it, but definitely not pleased with the way we played overall.”

For Norte Vista, it’ll be disappointing knowing that this was a winnable game, and one that the Braves probably should have won. Their running game was better than it was in Week 2, and they even mixed in 10 passes – a rarity. Sophomore RB Eddie Allain is durable, taking a number of big hits on the night and finishing with 22 touches. He had a late carry for a first down that was called back because of a flag, so still it remains a struggle to move the chains. They’ve had a tough time against bigger interior defenses, so mixing it up in this one and disguising calls will have made for good practice.

Norte Vista head coach Ken Batdorf said, “There’s a minute left in the game and we should make that stop. We also shot ourselves in the foot with a holding penalty. If that doesn’t happen, we win the game. It was a big gain by Eddie, so we found a way to hurt ourselves. We had another chance to score a touchdown and we jump offsides, twice. We have to clean up those mistakes. (Temecula Valley) is a good football team but let’s be honest – we easily could have won this. Give them credit for making the touchdown at the end. They didn’t give up, which you’ve got to commend. Their players and coaches do a great job, but we should’ve won this. We worked mixing it up and making some adjustments, but we still caught some formations wrong. We made some missed reads; had some guys open and didn’t do it. This hurts but it’s a nonleague game so if we can get better from this and learn then maybe we’ll be OK.”

BOX SCORE
Temecula Valley – 6 – 3 – 0 – 7 — 16
Norte Vista – 0 – 6 – 3 – 3 — 12
First quarter
T – Hughes 18 run (kick failed), 10:10
Second quarter
T – Tulimero 31 FG, 9:41
N – Allain 3 run (kick failed), 3:14
Third quarter
N – Salcedo 25 FG, 5:11
Fourth quarter
N – Salcedo 23 FG, 5:24
T – Flores 51 pass from Cutka (Tulimero kick), 51.4
Individual statistics
Rushing – Temecula Valley: Hughes 9-70, Moreno 13-55, Johns 3-2, Cutka 7-(minus-30); Norte Vista: Allain 22-64, Carvajal 9-74, Gonzalez 5-25, Luckey 5-7, Gonzales 3-(minus-6).
Passing – Temecula Valley: Cutka 10-12-0-148; Norte Vista: Gonzales 4-10-1-26.
Receiving – Temecula Valley: Flores 3-68, Pulsipher 4-40, Lindquist 2-37, Moreno 1-(minus-3); Norte Vista: Wilson 2-19, Rubio 1-4, Jurado 1-3.
Penalties – Temecula Valley: 6-70; Norte Vista: 9-70.