High school football: Chaparral hangs on for 27-21 victory over Temescal Canyon

Chaparral managed just enough big plays to avoid a devastating league loss in its 27-21 victory over Temescal Canyon on Friday.

The victory, coupled with Great Oak’s 49-37 loss to Murrieta Valley puts the Pumas back in the hunt for a league title.

But the Titans didn’t make it easy for them.

With the game tied at 21, Chaparral senior quarterback Mitch Glasmann scored on a 1-yard keeper to put the Titans on top.

However the Pumas missed the ensuing extra point and with five minutes left in the game, it set the stage for Temescal Canyon to bully its way downfield.

“That’s exactly what Temescal wants,” said Chaparral Defensive Coordinator Ryan Tukua. “Five minutes to grind out a drive and that’s what they did; we were fortunate enough to make a play.”

The Titans (3-5, 0-3) marched down the field with a 17-play, five-minute drive that ended premature when senior quarterback Mark Mireles missed a wide open Branden George for what could have been the game winning score.

“I said we’re not going to give them the ball back and score with 10 seconds left but we missed it,” said Temescal Canyon Head Coach Russ Strange.  “We played our behinds off but it just didn’t work out of us.”

Titans senior running back Maurice Rodriguez punished the Pumas (5-3, 2-1) defense to the tune of 245 yards on 50 carries and three touchdowns.

“We knew this was going to be a battle,” Tukua said.  “We knew watching on film this was going to be a tough game for us; they played their butts off and our kids did just enough.”

While Rodriguez and the Titans smash-mouth running style rendered the Pumas defense ineffective for the majority of the game, it was several key offensive and special team plays that allowed the Pumas to escape with a victory.

Following the Titans initial touchdown late in the first quarter, the Pumas answered immediately with an 80-yard bomb from Glasmann to senior Antoine Arnold on the first play of the ensuing drive.

Glasmann found Arnold again early in the second with a 25 yard strike to put the Pumas ahead.

But the Pumas inability to shut down the Titans offense resulted in a tie game at halftime.

Again the Pumas answered immediately with a 98-yard kick return by Dylan Valentine on the opening kickoff of the second half and again the Titans offense powered its way down the field to tie the game with a 16-play, 80-yard drive.

“We talked about it on Monday playing Titan football,” Strange said. “We run first and we did that tonight and we did a good job of it.”

“We played real hard tonight,” he added. “We weren’t perfect and didn’t do enough to win but we played really hard tonight.”

Glasmann’s one-yard touchdown put the Pumas ahead for good; he finished 10 of 12 for 100 yards and three total touchdowns.

Pumas Head Coach Tommy Leach was unavailable to the media.

“We’re just going to worry about us,” Tukua said. “That’s why coach Leach isn’t talking; we’re just worried about our team and we know we need to get better every single day and every single week.”

Tags: chaparral high school, SWRNN, temescal canyon high school

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Football, High School, Local News, News, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.