Tehachapi at East Bakersfield
October 12, 2013
Caleab Hutto #37 capped the Warrior’s Southeast Yosemite League opener over East with a one-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Overall, Tehachapi had 408 yards rushing on 60 carries. The Warriors defeated East High on a beautiful Fall afternoon
last Saturday in Bakersfield, 40-17. Photo by Mark Nessia.
Posted on October 14, 2013 by Tom Shea, The Tehachapi News Crashing The Party at East
Terle Scores 5 TD's in SEYL Opener
A standing room only crowd over just over 5,000 people came together last Saturday afternoon to celebrate East-Bakersfield High’s 75th anniversary and homecoming, an event that concluded with Tehachapi running away with a 40-17 victory.
With an attendance that featured guests from nearly every graduating class at East, the Blades played inspired football by opening the game with a first quarter touchdown. Later in the first half, East recovered a fumble on a kickoff to set up field position deep in Tehachapi territory and the chance to build on a 10-6 lead.
However, on the Blades’ drive, an alert Warrior defensive line stripped the ball from an East ball carrier near the endzone, with Thomas Blewett recovering the fumble. The play turned out to be a huge momentum shift, with the Warriors then driving 98 yards in 13 plays, capping the march with a Christian Terle two-yard touchdown run to take the lead before half, 12-10.
Terle finished as the leading rusher for Mountain Football with 172 yards on 21 carries, finishing the game with five touchdown runs of 31, 3, 3, 1 and 2 yards by game’s end. The five-touchdown total puts Terle second all-time in school history for scores in one game according to thswarriors.com, joining Dustin McBride (2000 vs. Arvin) and Wilbur Griffin (1942 vs. Maricopa) on the elite five-TD list.
Tehachapi (4-2; 1-0 SEYL) had 60 carries for 408 yards rushing overall behind offensive lineman Trey Abarquez, Greg Dodge, Rocky Radcliff, Joseph Blewett, Connor O’Neal and Gunther Murphy, among others.
Skylar Valencia was the second leading rusher in the contest, picking up 130 yards on 14 carries. Other carries came from Chris Rhodes, Ray Hackleman, Nick Steele, Anthony Curiel, Chris Llamas, Tyler Kroeger, Willy Urciel, Trent Reynolds and Caleab Hutto, who all combined for 117 yards on the ground.
Hutto also had the Warriors’ final touchdown of the day on a one-yard score in the fourth quarter.
On defense, Jerry Castaneda and Ty Curry both had two sacks while Micah Fjeld and Joseph Blewett had a sack each. Steven Cross, David Carter and Urciel both led the defense with six tackles apiece with Cross also finishing with two pass deflections in the secondary.
Other highlights included Isaiah Hutto and Carter both forcing a turnover on downs on a punt fake tackle in the third quarter, Dakota Medovitch recording an interception, Bobby Sharp a fumble recovery and the before-mentioned Thomas Blewett goal-line fumble recovery.
Mountain Football will continue their league schedule this week with a game against Highland at home this Friday night. The game will start at 7:30 p.m.
Warrior Christian Terle #32 rambles for yardage against East Bakersfield Saturday afternoon in Bakersfield. The Warriors defeated the Blades 40-17
to improve to 4-2 for the season; 1-0 in SEYL play. Terle scored 5 TD's, entering the Warrior record books, placing #2 all-time
for most Warrior TD's scored in a single game. Photo by Nick Ellis, The Bakersfield Californian.
Posted on October 13, 2013 by Zach Ewing, Sports Editor, The Bakersfield Californian Tehachapi Spoils East's Homecoming Activities
There was a little bit of something for everyone at East High's 75th anniversary homecoming celebration on Saturday: Face painting for the kids, drinks and dancing for the adults and music and mayhem just about everywhere you looked on the sprawling campus.
And, for the football teams: Encouraging signs for the host Blades and another victory for visiting Tehachapi. The Warriors ended the day with a second-half runaway to finish off East, 40-17.
"This was really neat for the kids," East coach Dave Thorp said. "It was a celebration of the school and of the kids. The game -- we could have been up 24-10 at the half, but that's coulda, woulda, shoulda."
What really happened is that Tehachapi (4-2, 1-0 Southeast Yosemite League) shook off a slow start to score 34 consecutive points and blow past the Blades (1-5, 0-1) in front of a crowd that included notable East alums like trial lawyer Tim Lemucchi and former mayor Mary K. Shell, who served as grandmasters for the occasion.
Christian Terle rushed for 172 yards and five touchdowns, including a score just 46 seconds before halftime that gave the Warriors their first lead at 12-10.
"We came out underestimating them, thinking this would be a walkover," Terle said. "Plus with it being a Saturday game, it's not the Friday night lights, that just kind of made us be off. But East is a great school, and they gave us everything they had."
East led 10-6 on the strength of a 1-yard Blake Sherman touchdown run and a 35-yard field goal from Vinicio Herrera. After the field goal, the Blades recovered a Tehachapi fumble on the kickoff and drove down to the Warriors' 1-yard line, poised to increase their lead. But there they lost a fumble, and Tehachapi used almost seven minutes of clock on a 13-play, 98-yard drive that changed the game.
"It was very important because it changes momentum," Terle said. "That was a huge shift."
In the second half, Tehachapi scored a touchdown each time it had the ball until time ran out. Terle's three third-quarter scores made it 33-10, and the back-ups tacked on another before East scored late on a Sherman-to-Josh Alvarado touchdown pass.
"The whole key in high school football is blocking, tackling and turnovers," Tehachapi coach Steve Denman said. "We finally started doing that. Dave had those (East) kids fired up, and it's like we told the kids: 'Hey, if you screw around and turn the ball over and given them any type of encouragement, they'll take it.' And they had us on our heels. I think we finally started to wear them down."
Skylar Valencia ran for 130 yards for the Warriors, who gained all 408 yards of offense via the ground game.
"Tehachapi is such a class group," Thorp said. "We knew what they were going to run, and they did. The just keep coming and coming. We want to get our program where they are."
For East, Luis Castaneda caught seven passes for 135 yards, including a 50-yard reception to set up the final score on a remarkable play. The shotgun snap went over Sherman's head, and after he ran back 10 yards to retrieve it, he circled around, avoided two defenders and hit Castaneda in stride.
By then, many of the proud East alumni had walked back down the hill towards the rest of the homecoming festivities. But they heard the roar from the crowd, appreciative of a team that had been motivated by the school's history. Thorp brought in former Blades football and basketball greats to speak the team during the week and made sure his team knew the significance of the day.
And, no matter what the scoreboard said, Thorp thought his message got through.
"What do you tell a team that is overmatched? I told them we played with courage," he said. "Our guys are starting to turn a small corner. It's not here yet, but there will be a day when we will have arrived. We've just got a lot of hard work in front of us."
1st 2nd 3rd 4th Final Tehachapi 6 6 21 7 40 East 7 3 0 7 17
The Scoring:
First Quarter:
East — Sherman 1 run (Herrera kick)
THS — Terle 31 run (kick failed)
Second Quarter:
East — Herrera 35 FG
THS — Terle 3 run (pass failed)
Third Quarter:
THS — Terle 3 run (Rodriguez kick)
THS — Terle 1 run (Rodriguez kick)
THS — Terle 2 run (Rodriguez kick)
Fourth Quarter:
THS — Hutto 1 run (Rodriguez kick)
East — Alvarado 6 pass from Sherman (Herrera kick)
Tehachapi at East Stats
THS EHS First Downs 22 14 Rushes-Yards 60-408 25-111 Passing Yards 0 164 Comp-Att-Int 0-3-1 12-25-0 Total Yards 408 275 Punts 1-35.0 2-37.0 Fumbles-Lost 5-1 3-1 Penalties 2-10 4-25
Individual Statistics:
RUSHING:
Tehachapi: Terle 21-172, Valencia 14-130, Curiel 5-37, Rhodes 2-24, Steele 3-21, Hackleman 3-17, Hutto 3-6, Llamas 3-5, Kroeger 1-4, Urciel 1-2, Reynolds 2-1, Cross 1-(-9), TEAM 1-(-2).
East: McCollins 10-42, Sherman 7-42, Rivera 5-25, Nichols 2-3, Gutierrez 1-(-1).
PASSING:
Tehachapi: Llamas 0-2-0-0, Curry 0-1-1-0. East: Sherman 12-25-1-164.
RECEIVING:
Tehachapi: None; East: Castaneda 7-135, Alvarado 3-19, Nichols 2-10.
Varsity – Tehachapi (4-2; 1-0 SEYL), East (1-5; 0-1 SEYL)
Junior Varsity - Tehachapi 40 East 13
Frosh-Soph Game - Tehachapi 06 East 34
