October 14, 2024
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
Less than an hour before Gahr High’s key Gateway League contest at Norwalk High, head coach Greg Marshall indicated that his team is finally healthy. For the first half of the game, the Gladiators were owning nearly every statistic except the score, which they trailed 21-14 at the break.
It was still a one possession game entering the fourth quarter, but Norwalk was beginning to turn up the heat just enough to hold off an already, and unexpected injury-riddled Gahr squad 43-35. The Lancers had leads of 14 and 16 points respectively in the final stanza and Gahr recovered an onside kick with a minute remaining. But four straight incomplete passes from junior quarterback Roman Acosta sealed the deal.
“In the first half, it was kind of upside down,” said Norwalk head coach Ruben Guerrero. “They were controlling the clock; going slow, and I think that was their best defense. I was saying, ‘hey, we’re supposed to do that; run the clock down’. But they did a good job a couple of times of out-flanking us in certain spots and getting around the edge on us. They really controlled the clock for a while.”
Two seasons ago, Gahr came to Norwalk with the Lancers on top of the Mid-Cities League at that time with a 2-0 league mark while Bellflower High was 2-1 and Gahr sitting at 1-1. But it was the Gladiators that slowed down Norwalk’s double wing offense and picked up a 26-6 victory.
In that game, the Lancers were limited to 142 rushing yards by five players while Kalen Montgomery would have 182 yards on 20 carries and scored twice for Gahr. Norwalk had a chance to wrap up the league title had it won the game, but all three teams ended up in a three-way tie for first place at the end of the season.
Last Friday, it appeared that Gahr would have close to the same results as it did in 2022. The Gladiators had more offensive plays in the first half (34-14), more yards (164-147) and owned the time of possession (16:37-7:23). And despite not letting Norwalk run away from the game in the second half, the injuries started lining up for the Gladiators.
“Not enough bodies,” said Marshall as the difference between the two halves. “[Senior running back] Ja’Shon [Wallace] went down, [senior running back] Dylan [Richburg] went down; we had a lot of guys going down. We don’t have real backups, so we’re trying to piece stuff together. That was the biggest issue with that. In the first drive [of the game], Ja’Shon goes down and I was like, what, are you kidding me? So, we’re down one linebacker and [we have to go] to a four-man line.
“That was just it,” he continued. “Hopefully, no one is seriously hurt. It’s just that we had to piece it together; we ran out of running backs.”
Gahr had its best drive of the game to begin the contest, gaining 60 yards on 13 plays and taking 7:08 off the clock. Wallace had two rushes for six yards within the first five plays, then nothing for the remainder of the game. The drive ended with seldom-used junior fullback Harlym Rayford pushing his way past the Norwalk defensive wall for a short one-yard touchdown run.
The Lancers, though, would bounce back and with 14 seconds left in the stanza, senior running back Ezra Meuller scored from two yards out. The two-point conversion failed and Gahr would take a 7-6 lead into the second quarter, where on the sixth play, Acosta tossed a 14-yard pass to senior wide receiver Markell Slaughter and just like that, the visitors had increased their lead to 14-6.
But with the ball in Gahr territory following the ensuing kickoff, junior running back Diego Cerritos gained 15 yards, then Meuller added his second touchdown, this time a 29-yard run and with Cerritos adding the two-point conversion, the game was tied with 8:20 left in the half.
Gahr would be held on downs when sophomore linebacker David Ibarra made an open field tackle to take down Richburg for a two-yard loss on fourth and five. That was followed by runs from Meuller of six and 10 yards, an 11-yard gain from Cerritos and a 16-yard touchdown run from Meuller with 2:28 left in the half.
Meuller and Cerritos were the only offense the Lancers needed in the half, combining for all 147 first half yards on 13 rushes. Meanwhile, Acosta had completed five passes for 66 yards and Richburg had carried the ball 12 times for 35 yards.
“We’re trying to contain the runners; not let them run outside on us, and they were still able to do that a couple of times,” said Guerrero. “We worked on that [at halftime] and we kind of shored that up. But then they just started throwing the ball right behind where we were not.”
“We were doing what we wanted to do; trying to keep those guys off the field,” said Marshall. “I’m happy with our effort and I think we were right there. That’s a physical football team; those guys are a lot bigger than I thought they would be.”
Norwalk (6-1, 2-0) got the ball to begin the second half, and it didn’t take long before the Lancers doubled their lead. On the fourth play, Cerritos added a 39-yard touchdown run to his game resume, which would be the only score of the quarter until there were 11 seconds remaining.
Gahr had completed a 5:20, 11-play, 61-yard drive which ended with a trick play as Acosta was on the receiving end of an eight-yard touchdown pass from Slaughter. The drive was the second longest of the night for the blue and gold.
“We just don’t have enough linemen to shut that thing down or slow it down,” said Marshall. “We need a little more size in there. We switched some things up at half and I thought we did a better job.”
The fast-paced offenses continued as Cerritos scored from 37 yards out just three plays into the fourth quarter. But it didn’t take long for the Gladiators (3-4, 1-1) to answer back as a 19-yard reception from Slaughter, a 32-yard run from Richburg and a nine-yard run from Slaughter led to a four-yard score from Richburg. The two-point conversion was unsuccessful and with 8:26 left in the game, it was a 35-27 Norwalk lead.
The Lancers would then make sure Gahr wouldn’t have a lot of time to tie or take the lead as they put together a nearly seven-minute drive that covered 60 yards. With 1:44 remaining in the game, Meuller scored on a three-yard run and added a two-yard conversion.
However, three plays later, Gahr scored again as Acosta threw an 18-yard strike to senior wide receiver Isaiah Haywood, and a two-point conversion pass to Slaughter with 61 seconds left in the game. It was Haywood’s second catch of the drive. The Gladiators would recover the obvious onside kick but were unable to gain a yard from the 45-yard line.
“We knew it was coming; our hands team…I don’t know what happened with their hands,” said Guerrero. “But I think the moment just got to them. It bounced off three of our guys and we were like, ‘come on guys, we had three chances to get that ball’. Like they say, it’s just the shape of the football that dictates sometimes.”
Acosta may not have had the best completion percentage, but he still completed 13 of 31 passes for 194 yards with Slaughter catching seven of them for 93 yards. Playing injured, Richburg was able to pick up 87 yards on 15 hard carries while Slaughter added 44 yards on half a dozen carries.
“Ja’Shon and Dylan were both to split time, but they’re both also linebackers,” said Marshall. “When Ja’Shon went out, that was bad because now Dylan had to go both ways. We’re a little short on defense.
“Actually, we were planning on coming in passing the ball a little bit more in this game anyway,” he later said. “But then the running game was working, so I just stayed with the running game because the passing game wasn’t working too well.”
Cerritos led everyone with 178 yards on 13 carries while Meuller added 170 yards on 18 touches as the Lancers defeated Gahr for the first time in five meetings dating back to 2003.
“Being in close proximity we don’t see them very often,” said Guerrero. “This is the first time we’ve seen them in two years. But prior to that, I don’t know if we’ve played them very often. But now that we’re in the league with them, it’s just kind of the unknown. Plus, that’s a hell of a ballclub over there. They have some guys over there that can really run, throw and catch. It was an old speed versus power battle tonight.”
While Gahr goes on the road again to face first-year school, and winless Compton Early College, trying to get back to .500 for the third time this season, the Lancers will travel to Firebaugh High, the only other team yet to win a league game.
“With three games left, that’s what you want to do,” said Guerrero of peaking. “As the season progresses, you want to keep getting better. We’re getting better in a lot of areas. It looks like a bright outlook as far as playing more than 10 games, and we want to be playing our best football around week 11.”