Shafter pulls out another nailbiter to win regional bowl game at Walnut

Dec. 4—WALNUT — A week after Walnut used a second-half fake punt to ice its section championship win over Bellflower, the Mustangs delved back into their bag of tricks Friday night against Shafter.

This time, though, their attempt at special-teams deception began their undoing.

Showing punt from its own 40-yard line in the third quarter, Walnut snapped the ball to upback Elias Riojas, who fell two yards short of the first-down marker. The Mustangs lost control from then on, committing four devastating personal fouls (of their eight total on the game) to help Shafter add 10 points in the fourth quarter and rally for a 20-16 win.

With both teams playing in a regional bowl game for the first time, the Generals claimed a landmark victory and a berth in the Division 5-A state championship next Saturday.

"This is big for not only our program, but our school," Shafter coach Jerald Pierucci said. "I think it speaks to who we are as not only just Shafter, but a valley and the type of football we play. We're tough-nosed people. We go to work every day, we grind every day, and to come down here and just get a win in the way that we did it, I think, is just awesome."

After senior leader Koa Rhodes struggled to find running room in the first half, the Generals leaned on powerful sophomore Christopher Espinoza, who had 17 carries for a modest 48 yards, but that included two short touchdowns in the second half.

"If the hole's five yards wide, he's gonna get five yards, and if it's one yard wide he's gonna get five yards," Pierucci said. "We knew deep down in the second half when we got there, we were gonna put him in the backfield and just grind."

It was a relatively quiet day for freshman quarterback Ezekiel Osborne, with just 182 yards and no touchdowns or interceptions, though he got plenty of time to throw and came through with two big plays on Shafter's final drive: a 13-yard pass to Mariyon Sloan on third-and-12 and a 37-yard completion to Jesse Bernal that flipped the field on second-and-20.

"You can't ask for a better O-line than what we have," said sophomore lineman Ethan Dunlap. "We get to move the ball, we get to pass, and it's just good to have a passing game and a strong running game."

Perhaps the most effective component of Shafter's offense Saturday night was Walnut penalties. They began in earnest with a fourth-down pass-interference flag in the third quarter that set up Espinoza's tying score, then a roughing-the-kicker call on an Ernesto Guerrero field goal that gave Espinoza his second.

The Mustangs struck back two plays later when a curl route from Sal Quintanilla to Florencio Muro turned into a 66-yard score (though the extra point was blocked), but the next Shafter drive was aided by 43 yards of Walnut penalties, allowing Guerrero to boost the lead to 20-16.

"I don't know their makeup of the team or anything like that, but they were talking from the very beginning," Pierucci said. "Before we walked out on the field they were talking to us. So that's not who we are, so for us to keep playing the way we did is kind of in character to who we are as a football team and as a program."

Quintanilla was held to just 17 total yards outside of his catch-and-run touchdown pass. After Guerrero missed a 35-yard field goal with 55 seconds left, the Generals sacked him twice to effectively end the threat.

"Our goal this week was to really get after their quarterback, who's a big part of their offense, but he also plays defense," Pierucci said. "So we were trying to run at him as much as we possibly could and lean on him and everything, grind on him, and I think it paid off in the end there. He didn't have much legs left to be able to work."

A week after rallying from down 21 against Caruthers, Shafter overcame another double-digit deficit. The Mustangs opened with eight straight runs to set up an early 29-yard field goal, then wore down the Generals' run defense with a flexbone look in the second quarter to set up a 1-yard Quintanilla touchdown. Despite its success, Walnut rarely returned to that formation for the remainder of the game.

After taking over with a minute left in the second quarter, the Generals got a spark on a 23-yard completion from Osborne to Sloan and were able to put three points on the board.

"I told them I was waiting for the Shafter group that I've watched battle through this entire season to show up, and they finally showed up in the second half," Pierucci said.

The result was a landmark win for the program.

"The valley championship, it was good, 67 years, but Shafter never had this, so it's great," Dunlap said.

The Generals now move on to the state title game at unbeaten Orland next Saturday, their fifth straight road contest, this one nearly 370 miles from home.

Reporter Henry Greenstein can be reached at 661-395-7374. Follow him on Twitter: @HenryGreenstein.