Prep Impressions: April 9, 2021
RIVERSIDE — The Jurupa Valley Patriot-Riverside Arlington Week 3-A varsity football game on Friday, April 9, 2021, was the best game we’ve seen in years.
For Patriot, giving a sophomore 47 carries just seems excessive but Brandon Lopez said, “I feel alright”, when asked about his condition after the game. Still, does this toughen him up for a future of this or break him down and render his athleticism secondary? It’s a path only he can walk but he’ll need help along the way which is why running big bodies will be such an important part of the Warriors’ plan over the next two years.
Patriot coach Chris Fowler said, “It’s exciting to see these kids come together in a pressure situation. You can’t simulate that stuff in practice, where you can make sure that you’re doing the little things; I think we only had one penalty in the fourth quarter – which has been something that’s plagued us all year – and to not turn the ball over at the end, so just doing those little things helped us. You don’t want to overwork a kid that much but when nothing else is working we just kept running it. He’s getting us 3-plus yards on every play so we’re going to keep running it. He’s a stud.”
For Arlington, the opportunity to win back-to-back games for the first time since the Obama administration was more pressure than this young team – and defense – could handle. The Lions managed very few first downs, overall, and were both very close to getting blown out and winning this game. Freshman RB Christian Bozeman continues to impress with two long touchdown runs (43, 50) that really showcased his top-end speed.
Arlington coach Jeff Roney said, “It was going to be whoever had the ball last and they we’re able to steal a possession from us that ended up costing us. We had to waste timeouts and that didn’t help. We’re still trying to learn how to win. We performed well at times but we don’t know how to finish yet, and we’re still trying to learn how to finish and we’re not there yet. They played hard and they played with heart but you’ve got to learn how to win. It’s not just the Xs and Os, it’s a mentality, but we’re getting there. We’re vastly improved over what we were. It was good to get the monkey off our back (with the win over La Sierra) and say, ‘OK, let’s forget about that’ and now we can just worry about a game and not a streak of losses.”
BOX SCORE
Patriot – 3 – 0 – 7 – 13 — 23
Arlington – 0 – 8 – 0 – 14 — 22
First quarter
P – Kendall 26 FG, 6:39
Second quarter
A – Bozeman 43 run (I.Gomez run), 4:30
Third quarter
P – Lopez 1 run (Kendall kick), 3:97
Fourth quarter
A – Bozeman 3 run (I.Gomez run), 9:59
A – Bozeman 50 run (pass failed), 9:48
P – Lopez 7 run (kick failed), 3:09
P – Lopez 1 run (Kendall kick), 0:10
Team statistics
Total plays – Patriot: 74; Arlington: 44.
First downs – Patriot: 18; Arlington: 6.
Penalties – Patriot: 5-35; Arlington 3-35.
Individual statistics
Rushing – Patriot: Lopez 47-192, #4 10-51, #2 2-6; Arlington: Bozeman 16-155, I.Gomez 7-47, #22 3-23, Allen 5-16, Wood 2-(minus-5).
Passing – Patriot: #4 2-7-1-31; Arlington: Wood 2-6-1-11.
Receiving – Patriot: #31 1-30, #2 1-1; Arlington: #23 2-11.
Interceptions – Patriot: #2 1-0; Arlington: #8 1-30.
INLAND FIELDHOUSE 