Troy Takes Advantage of Mistakes, Beats Rancho Alamitos

Rancho Alamitos had made enough mistakes of its own Thursday night against Troy--offsides, bad snaps, dropped passes, inopportune timeouts. Maybe it was only fitting the referees made one too.

The Vaqueros had somehow overcome their own miscues to lead Troy in the fourth quarter, but they couldn’t overcome a call that took away an apparent touchdown and wound up losing, 28-24, at Fullerton High.

Chris Young appeared to go in for his third touchdown of the night, giving the Vaqueros a 31-21 lead with eight minutes left. But the referees ruled that Young fumbled before he reached the end zone.

Troy, which lost to Rancho Alamitos in the first round of the playoffs last year, recovered the ball in the end zone and drove the ball 80 yards in 10 plays on a worn-out Rancho Alamitos defense to take a 28-24 lead.

Young, who finished with 60 yards and two touchdowns in nine carries, thought he had scored.

“It goes both ways,” Young said. “It happened to fall their side at the end. I know I broke the plane. Then all of a sudden, I saw the ref raise his arm and call a fumble.

“This could be a blessing. People thought it was going to be too easy because we have a lot of talent. Hopefully, we’ll pull together now and play hard.”

Whether Troy caught a break or not, it definitely outplayed Rancho Alamitos for much of the game. The Warriors led, 14-10, at halftime and fell behind, 24-14, when they turned over the ball twice within a minute in the third quarter.

But Troy came back to score on drives of 71 and 80 in the last quarter.