Hoover football comes back to topple La Cañada
GLENDALE — Football season started in earnest for La Cañada High and Hoover as the Tornadoes hosted the Spartans in both schools’ opening contests.
In a tight game, in which points were hard to come by, Hoover found just enough to make a fourth-quarter comeback and down the visiting Spartans, 13-12, Friday night in a rare game played on campus.
“It feels good,” said Hoover coach Terrance Jones, who is in his second year as head coach after coaching the junior varsity “It’s exciting. These guys are the guys I started with, most of them. I was their JV coach. I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do.”
Hoover trailed, 12-6, when the hosts got the ball back with 5:19 left in the game. The Tornadoes promptly mounted a 60-yard drive that culminated in a 12-yard scoring pass from Mattis Richards to James Chang. On the play, Chang found room in the middle of the field to make the catch in traffic and tooke it into the end zone to knot the score at 12 with 2:45 left. Tornados kicker Edwin Milian-Moreno calmly stepped up and booted home the extra point and gave the hosts their first lead of the game, 13-12.
“On that play I don’t know what was going through my mind, but I slipped through,” Chang said. “[Richards] threw it and I just caught it.”
That lead stood up when the ensuing La Cañada drive came up short, ending in a turnover on downs which allowed Hoover to knell out the rest of the clock.
“We are trying to stress resilience,” Jones said.
La Cañada had taken the lead in the game for the second time with 8:54 left in the fourth. A Richards pass was tipped up into the air, and just before it found the turf Spartans Dezin Delgatty scooped up the ball and returned it 12 yards for a 12-6 advantage. However, the pass attempt on a two-point conversion was picked off, leaving the door open for the Tornadoes, who would walk through it for the victory.
Hoover’s attack was almost exclusively through the air. Richards, a junior, threw the ball early and often, finishing 24 of 46 for 372 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions.
“[Richards] made some good reads,” Jones said. “Early on, the guys were kind of letting him down, dropping a lot of balls, but he kept coming to the sideline and he was riding his guys. I guess he’s becoming a field general. We really need him to be a field general. When he does it will be better for us.”
In contrast, La Cañada, which has now lost 11 games in a row after going winless in 10 game in 2017, relied on the ground game. Seven Spartans carried the ball, led by Kai Chavez. The junior carried the ball 11 times for 84 yards before coming out with a leg injury near the midpoint of the fourth quarter.
“We’ve just got to build and keep the spirits high and keep working at it,” La Cañada coach Jason Sarceda said. “We’ll get back after it. We can do it.”
The first points of the season for the Spartans came with 6:09 left before halftime. In the Spartans’ fourth possession of the contest, they went to their power running game, which ate up chunks of yards. The visitors cashed in at the end of the 62-yard drive when Jacob Hardy ran the ball up the middle into the end zone from six yards out.
The first points of the season for Hoover came on the next drive as the Tornadoes answered the opening score. The touchdown came on a 45-yard strike from Richards to Guilermo Corrales. The senior receiver caught the ball coming across the deep middle with a defender draped on him, as he spun away and accelerated the rest of the way in.
Hoover looked poised on game’s opening possession after a 55-yard catch and run by Corrales set up the host at the 2-yard line. However, on fourth down from the 5, Richards threw into the end zone and was picked off by Jackson Sost.
With Hoover throwing so much, the La Cañada pass rush was a factor. The Spartans tallied five sacks. Hardy led the way with two sacks while also getting one interception.
Making the win even sweeter for Hoover was the fact that a full varsity game had not been played on campus for at least the last decade. This season the Tornadoes will have one more game on campus when they host Burroughs October 11. Up next will be five games on the road.