Valencia Runs Past Troy, 30-0

Football coaches are fond of saying their teams don’t know the meaning of the word quit.

There’s another word Mike Marrujo, Valencia High School coach, has kept his offensive backfield ignorant of: Sideways.

Running backs Ray Pallares and Tony Goulet bulled their way straight ahead, carrying an occasional Troy defender piggyback, as they led the Tigers to their third consecutive victory, a 30-0 decision over Troy Friday in front 1,500 in Fullerton District Stadium.

Pallares and Goulet combined for 223 yards rushing. What wasn’t so typical was that Goulet outgained Pallares.

Pallares ran for 108 yards on 21 carries, but Goulet had 115 yards on 18 carries.

“They were keying on Raymond,” Marrujo said. “It was a smart move since Tony only carried 12 times in our last game.”

If Goulet’s performance was unexpected, what Valencia quarterback Jeff Martinez did was surprising.

Martinez completed just three passes in the first half, but two were for touchdowns. The first came on an 11-yard pass to wide receiver Jason Marr, with 7:02 left in the second quarter.

Marr got behind Troy pass coverage and was alone in the end zone when Maritnez spotted him. The throw was behind him, so Marr had to make a sliding, bobbling catch of the ball.

The Tigers had the ball back in Troy territory on their next possession when Troy punter Todd Murdock took a bad snap and attempted to run for a first down. He was tackled on the Warrior 25-yard line.

Pallares and Goulet ran once each for a total of four yards. On the next play Martinez took a deep drop, taking all of the Troy defensive line with him. He flipped the ball in the flat to tight end Jay Van Gorden who had to elude just one defender en route to the end zone.

“We saw that open on the films this week,” Marrujo said. “They happened to blitz on the play and there were three guys ahead of Van Gorden blocking for him.”

Martinez later threw a 40-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Dwayne Denolf in the fourth quarter to close out the scoring.

Denolf made a great twisting catch between two Troy defensive backs and then fell backward into the end zone. Maritnez ended the night completing 5 of 8 passes for 118 yards.

He did this after missing his first three passes.

“He missed those first ones early in the game,” Marrujo said. “So we went to some short passes to build his confidence. Once he completed a few he was pretty confident to go deep.”