EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — After two close losses to start off the season, the Pebble Hills High School football team was looking for a spark, anything to get them going on Friday night, Sept. 13 against Americas High.
The Spartans got just that when defensive back Julius Castro scooped up a fumble and ran 12 yards for a game-changing touchdown with 8:06 left in the first half.
At that point in the contest, Pebble Hills and Americas were knotted at 14-14. The Spartans used that as the catalyst as they erupted for seven unanswered touchdowns en route to a dominating 63-14 homecoming win at the Socorro Activities Center No. 1.
“That was really the spark we needed,” Pebble Hills coach Ryan Warner said, noting that Americas had taken a quick 7-0 lead on the first play of the game.
Americas quarterback Jayden Mendivil burst around end and ran 75 yards on the opening snap of the game.
The two teams traded touchdowns and the score was knotted at 14-14 in the nondistrict contenst when Castro came up with the play that changed the course of the contest.
After that, it was all Pebble Hills as the Spartans went into halftime up 42-14.
Pebble Hills started out the season with a 7-0 loss to Canutillo and then lost 28-23 last week to Midland.
“They have been getting better from Canutillo to Midland to tonight,” Warner said. “To me, that is what pre-district is for: Let’s iron out the kinks so we know what we are working with and what we have to fix going into the district schedule — win a district championship, compete for the bi-district and move on from there.”
All night, Pebble Hills’ defense proved to be opportunistic, bottling up a one-diminensional Americas offense that was highly dependent on the running game and Cam Johnson in particular.
Another huge play came late in the second quarter when Pebble Hills’ linebacker Dorian Jamarillo was in the right place at the right time and snared an errant option pitch and ran 25 yards down to the 1-yard line. Warner then put Jamarillo into the offense and gave him the ball twice, resulting in a 1-yard touchdown on the second attempt. That made the sccore 42-14 right before the half.
And Pebble Hills never looked back.
“It (this win) is huge,” Warner said. “It shows the process. It shows what we needed to work on and once adjusting those, we can be successful.”
But Warner doesn’t want his team to get too exicted, citing the old football maxim that you are never as good as you seem when things are going well or bad as it seems when things go wrong.
“We will enjoy this for 24 hours and then onto Rio Rancho Cleveland,” he said.
Pebble Hills quarterback Joe Fernandez rushed for two touchdowns and threw for one score. Spartan running back Zereian Quarles rushed 17 times for 92 yards, including two touchdowns. Quarles also had two receptions for 34 yards.
Americas quarterback Mendivil ran 10 times for 92 yards, including a 75-yard TD run on the first play of the game. Cam Johnson, facing eight men in the box most of the night, ran 16 times for 40 yards and one touchdown.
Pebble Hills is now 1-2 on the season, while Americas fell to 0-2.
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