Muir breaks down CV
PASADENA — Crescenta Valley High football Coach Paul Schilling repeatedly warned his team throughout the week about Muir’s athleticism.
Be it on the ground or in the air, Schilling told his players that Muir is more than capable of breaking off big plays at any time.
Crescenta Valley found out the hard way Friday night during a 39-16 road loss to Muir in a Pacific League contest.
“When it comes down to playing Muir, if you let them get it going, then you have a problem,” said Schilling, whose team fell to 4-2 and 2-1 in league. “In the first quarter, we just couldn’t get on their side of the field and we had a tough time stopping them.”
Muir snapped its four-game losing streak to improve to 2-4 and 1-2. The Mustangs finished with 398 yards of total offense, which played a key role in Crescenta Valley’s defense spending additional time on the field.
The Mustangs led throughout, building a 26-3 halftime lead. They took advantage of a turnover by the Falcons on CV’s first play from scrimmage. After the Mustangs recovered a fumble on the Crescenta Valley 39-yard line, Muir took a 6-0 lead four plays later on a three-yard run by Rayn Cater with 7:41 left in the first quarter.
Crescenta Valley, which played its first game without starting running back Marro Lee, who is out for the season with a broken thumb, found itself in further trouble when Kevon Seymour hauled in a 12-yard pass from quarterback Jeffrey Davis to extend Muir’s lead to 13-0 with 9:06 remaining in the second quarter.
Exactly four minutes later, Davis fired a 45-yard touchdown pass to Karl Holmes to make it 20-0.
Crescenta Valley cut the lead to 20-3 on 34-yard field goal by Pavle Atanackovic with 1:39 left in the first half, but Muir responded with a 10-yard touchdown run by Davis with 4.6 seconds remaining in the half.
Looking to jumpstart his squad, Schilling turned to reserve quarterback Paul Perigini in place of Zac Wilkerson.
The move paid off for the Falcons, as Perigini floated a 13-yard scoring pass to Nick Ruiz with 4:45 left in the third quarter to cut the deficit to 26-10.
Perigini later scored on a one-yard run on the first play of the fourth quarter to bring Crescenta Valley to within 32-16.
“We wanted to make a switch so we could get something going,” said Schilling, who saw Perigini complete six of seven passes for 74 yards.
