Gahr senior wide receiver Josh Perkins goes up high to haul in one of his six receptions in last Friday night's San Gabriel Valley League opener at Downey. Photo By Tom Meyers, H-Mphoto.Net.
SAN GABRIEL VALLEY
LEAGUE FOOTBALL
By Loren Kopff
DOWNEY-At times, Gahr’s offense was running as usual in its San Gabriel Valley League opener last Friday night at Downey. But the real story of the game, and what eventually hurt the Gladiators all night long, was the turnover factor.
Senior quarterback D.J. Lopez threw four interceptions and Gahr fumbled three times as the Vikings scored all three of their second half touchdowns off of Gahr turnovers to erase an early 10-point deficit and knock off the Gladiators 42-23. Gahr’s high octane offense was held to almost 26 points below its season average as the team dropped to 3-3 overall.
“Just like the Kennedy game, we turn the ball over,” said Gahr head coach Greg Marshall. “You can’t overcome that many turnovers. We didn’t do anything to win the football game.”
Gahr struck first when sophomore Isaiah Soto booted a 34-yard field goal just 1:10 into the game. But the Vikings, like the other league opponents, ran through and around the Gahr defense, led by Kyle Lewis. He picked up 69 yards on four carries on Downey’s first possession, the final 24 resulting in a touchdown. But when Alex Salinas was wide right on a 36-yard field goal attempt, Lopez immediately found junior wide receiver Delshawn McClellon over the middle on the very next play and 80 yards later the Gladiators had reclaimed the lead.
Those two would hook up again with 59 seconds left in the first quarter, this time for a 77-yard connection. Gahr had five first quarter possessions lasting a total of 3:10 but scored three times with Lopez picked off twice. In fact, Lopez was five of 10 for 205 yards in the stanza but was held to193 yards the rest of the game.
While Gahr was struggling to move the ball downfield in the second quarter, the Vikings took a page out of the Gahr playbook and scored twice on touchdown passes as Dallas Lopez found Isaac Dan for 11 and 45-yard strikes to give the hosts the lead for good with 5:03 left in the half. On top of the turnovers, Lopez wasn’t getting much help from the offensive line as he was sacked 10 times in the game for losses totaling 68 yards. Gahr’s running game would be non-existent as two other players combined to rush two times for minus seven yards.
“We didn’t run the ball as much as we thought we should,” Marshall said. “I thought we were losing some physical battles there. Some of the things they were doing made it real hard for us to [run]. You have to give [Downey] credit.”
The third interception of the night led to a Lewis 40-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter, giving the Vikings a 28-17 lead. Then the game turned sloppy early in the fourth when both teams combined for three turnovers on successive plays in a span of 20 seconds. But with the Gahr offense finding tough times to score, McClellon gave his team some hope when he returned a punt 72 yards for a score down the left sideline with 5:16 remaining in the game. The two-point conversion would fail and the Gladiators would gain six positive yards the rest of the way. Lewis, who ran for 240 yards on 27 carries, scored the final two touchdowns of the game as Downey’s offense torched the Gahr defense for 467 yards.
For Gahr, Lopez finished completing 21 passes in 38 attempts for 398 yards but never completed more than three consecutive passes at any time.
“He was holding onto the ball a little bit and made some bad decisions,” Marshall said of his signal caller. “That kind of goes with throwing the interceptions. The ball should have been gone and it wasn’t gone.
“You can’t really calm him down,” Marshall added. “You just hope that the game slows down enough for him so he can make better decisions. I think Downey and Warren do a good job of mixing their coverages against us.”
McClellon caught eight passes for 206 yards while senior wide receiver Josh Perkins hauled in six passes for 87 yards. Gahr has now lost at least five straight games at Allen Layne Stadium and has fallen to Downey in at least eight of the last nine seasons. In addition, Gahr has also not won at Warren, the other school in the city of Downey, in at least four tries.
“We don’t play well on this turf,” Marshall said. “I’m telling you, I don’t like coming here and I don’t like playing on this stuff.”
The Gladiators hosted Dominguez on Oct. 21 in virtually a must-win situation. With the new makeup of the Western Division, the league is now taking two automatic qualifiers instead of three. Falling to 0-2 to begin the league slate would be tough for Gahr to overcome if it is to automatically advance to the playoffs instead of waiting to see it gets in as an at-large team.
“They weren’t more physical than us,” Marshall said of Downey. “The things that can be fixed are easy to fix. If it was something like where we’re getting blown away and we’re not hurting ourselves, then you have problems.”
SUBURBAN LEAGUE
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