Bell’s six touchdowns lead Burroughs football past Hoover

GLENDALE — Burroughs High’s Chance Bell was motivated times two Thursday against Hoover in a Pacific League football opener.

The previous week in a loss to Diamond Ranch, Bellhad three fumbles, prompting the San Diego State commit to take to Twitter and apologize to his teammates and Indians fans for his miscues. Bell also was told that the Tornadoes posted a picture of him as a form of motivation.

Both served to fuel Bell, as the senior running back had a monumental performance, scoring six touchdowns and amassing 332 yards in 21 carries to power Burroughs to a 55-21 league victory at Glendale’s Moyse Field.

“I had to shake it off after what happened last week. I watched films and I came back hard today,” Bell said. “I was motivated by that, just wanting to bounce back and play a better game. I was also motivated because [the Tornadoes] talked a lot and they put pictures of me up in their locker room.

“I didn’t want to say much about it, I just wanted to come out here and perform, and that’s what I like to do.”

Bell’s single-game rushing total was the fourth-best on the Burroughs all-time list behind three performances by Zander Anding. His 36 points tied him with Anding for No. 3 on the all-time list.

“Chance is a guy who has been solid for us going on three years now and his performance last week was not indicative of the player that he is and it was kind of a fluke thing,” said Burroughs Coach Mike Reily, whose team improved to 2-2. “He took it personally last week and he made an effort this week to come out and have a more focused week of practice. I also think he had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder and felt he had something to prove coming out tonight.”

The loss was the first of the season for Hoover (3-1), which enjoyed a 3-0 start for the first time since 1958.

The Tornadoes began with a bang, scoring on their first drive of the game on a two-yard plunge by Quinton Smith (18 carries for 72 yards and two touchdowns) to stake the hosts to a 7-0 lead with 8:11 remaining in the first quarter.

But then the Hoover offense went dry and didn’t score again until 6:15 was left in the contest.

In the meantime, Bell ran at, around and through the Tornadoes defense, scoring touchdowns of 48, 43, 78, 17, 12 and seven yards.

“We have a lot of two-way players and we just got worn down late in that game,” Hoover Coach Matt Anderson said. “Nothing’s changed in that respect at Hoover and we’re suiting up 35 or 36 guys and a lot of them have to play both ways. We are trying to do all we can to have just one offense and just one defense, but it doesn’t always work out that way. If we have guys go down, it really gets tough.

“But their running back is a heck of a running back and he’s a [Division I] running back and rightfully so. They also have a great O-line and that helped him a lot.”

The Burroughs offense sputtered early in the game, but the Indians were able to tie the score at 7 with 44.6 seconds left in the first quarter following a 48-yard run by Bell.

Neither team could score in the second quarter and the Indians and Tornadoes went into halftime knotted 7-7.

“We made some adjustments at halftime and that helped us a lot,” Reily said. “But give credit to [Hoover], they have some tough kids and that made it close early on.”

Burroughs pulled away in the third quarter, as Bell tallied four touchdowns to put the Indians in front, 34-7 after three. The Indians defense had two interceptions, both by Preston Hernandez.

The Indians increased their advantage to 41-7 after a seven-yard Bell touchdown run with 9:11 left in the game.

Hoover received a 69-yard scoring run from quarterback Angel Rangel, who had 16 carries for 105 yards and completed six passes for 93 yards. Tornadoes running back Maurice Herrera had four carries for 62 yards.

Burroughs running back Ben Peters had four carries for 66 yards and one touchdown. He also had an 80-yard touchdown run on a kickoff in the fourth quarter.