Rams roll past rival Saints
RIO VISTA — No Javis Blalock? No problem.
And no letdown, either.
Even without the state leader at 19.5 yards per carry, the Rio Vista High football team rolled up 401 yards of offense and nearly had three 100-yard rushers in rolling past rival Delta of Clarksburg 54-15 in the first round of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division V playoffs on Thursday.
The fourth-seeded Rams advance to the semifinals at top-seeded Le Grand, the defending champion, next Friday.
The rivals met in the season opener with Rio Vista (9-2) blasting Delta (6-5) 54-8. In that game, Blalock bolted for 156 yards on just three carries and finished the regular season with 1,618 yards and 22 touchdowns.
“We actually played a better game this time,” Rams coach Cliff Malta said. “Javis is a big part of our offense and he didn’t play what, two plays? He didn’t even get the ball (on offense) tonight.”
After the Rio Vista defense stuffed fifth-seed Delta on fourth-and-inches at midfield, the Rams drove to the end zone on just three plays with Charlie Chres going off left tackle from 7 yards out. The downer on the play was Blalock down in pain in the end zone, apparently reaggravating a leg injury. Moments later he returned a punt, but was then done for the night.
Filling in flawlessly for him was Chace Marlowe, who scored Rio Vista’s next touchdown on a 32-yard sweep to the right and finished the night with 121 yards on nine carries.. Misfires on conversions left the score 12-0.
Delta threatened to make a game of it when Avory Trejo took a cross-field lateral from Cory Wallace, pulled up and fired a bomb to Ernie Godinez for a 61-yard scoring play. Trejo’s two-point conversion run made it 12-8 with 59 seconds left in the first quarter.
All that did was fire up the Rams on offense, defense and special teams.
Chres, whose fumble had given the Saints the ball for their touchdown, quickly made amends, bolting 56 yards up the middle to score with 31 seconds left in the period. Chres ended up with 109 yards on seven carries, his fourth 100-yard game of the season and first since week 4. Austin Stevens’ conversion run upped the lead to 20-8.
Two plays later, Austin Stevens recovered a Trejo fumble on the on the Delta 37 and then tossed a 43-yard scoring strike to Brandon Mack to make it 26-8.
Delta’s Michael Pitts fumbled the ensuing kickoff and Marlowe recovered at the Saints’ 30. Four plays after that, Stevens found a wide open Mack in the end zone and Tanner Webster ran in the conversion to give the Rams a 34-8 edge.
Rio Vista wasn’t through before the half. Marlowe swept right 17 yards to give the Rams a 40-8 lead with 4:47 to go before intermission.
Tanner Webster capped Rio Vista’s scoring with a pair of 4-yard touchdown runs and wound up with 91 yards on 11 carries and upping his season total to 1,048 yards, joining teammates Blalock and Chres (1,118) as 1,000-yard rushers.
Having all three in the same backfield would make Malta’s job easier against Le Grand.
As for Thursday, “I’m proud of them, the line did a good job,” the coach said. “We had a lapse on that (Delta touchdown pass). Outside of that, we did a good job. We’re looking forward to going to Le Grand next week.”
Reach Paul Farmer at 425-4646 Ext. 264 or pfarmer@dailyrepublic.net.
Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=106656
Posted by Paul Farmer
on Nov 10 2011.
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