Patriots improving, but mistakes still costly in 35-20 loss
Hayden Hill goes in standing for a touchdown for Heritage Friday night. (Photo by Action Captures Media Group) By Doug Spoon, Editor Herit...
By Doug Spoon, Editor
Heritage High football coach Rich McClure is still waiting for his team to put it all together, but there were some encouraging signs of continued improvement in Friday’s home game against Kaiser.
The Patriots showed flashes of a strong running game. A new face at quarterback fueled a second-half resurgence. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to pull out a victory against Kaiser, which scored a 35-20 nonleague victory.
Heritage trailed by just a point at 7-6 after the first quarter, but missed opportunities and turnovers hurt the Patriots later on. Kaiser took a 21-12 halftime lead and was ahead 28-12 at the close of the third quarter after a 95-yard interception return for a touchdown by Kingston Tucker. Heritage cut the deficit to 28-20 with 9:49 left in the game, but Kaiser responded with another TD and snuffed out Heritage’s final drive with another interception.
Junior running back Hayden Hill led the Patriots’ running game with 122 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries, while senior Matthew Flores added 74 yards on 11 carries. Sophomore Jaden Lewis ran 26 yards for a touchdown, and starting quarterback Elijah Sanchez threw 17 yards to Matt Mason for a score.
Otherwise, despite what McClure called an outstanding game from his offensive line, the Patriots lacked enough big plays to make a difference – especially in the passing game. As the coach always says, it’s a process, and it’s back to the practice field next week to work on things.
“We made a lot of mistakes,” McClure said. “We ran the ball, which is what we wanted to do. But we made some really poor decisions throwing the ball. They have a lot of options, we give them the read … but when they don’t choose right, it’s not successful.”
In about a quarter and a half of playing time, Sanchez completed 4 of 8 passes for 64 yards, one touchdown and one interception. McClure went to sophomore Noah Milton midway through the second quarter, and he responded by completing 8 of 11 passes for 90 yards, but with two interceptions.
Asked which player would start at quarterback next week, McClure was noncommittal.
“We’ll go back to practice next week and we’ll see,” he said. “We’re not the NFL, we’re not college, we’re not firing people … we’re working with young people and we’re going to make sure they understand and grow from the mistakes.”
McClure said that overall, the offensive line has made big strides in its protection of the backs. Now he’s waiting for the backs to produce in all phases of the game.
“Our offensive line is very frustrated because they’re way ahead of where our backs are,” McClure said. “Our skill guys have got to catch up. We did a good job on the line of scrimmage, making some good calls. Our right guard, Austen Willison, is really doing a great job of making the calls.”
McClure was also impressed with the play of senior tight end Dane Ortiz, who had 6 catches for 83 yards.
“He had an injury during the summer and couldn’t play last week because he didn’t have enough practices in,” McClure said. “For his first game back, he did a really good job.”
The last time the Patriots made a run at the Cats came early in the fourth quarter. Hill had four straight physical runs through the middle of the line for a total of 43 yards, including a 2-yard touchdown run to make it 28-20. Kaiser responded only five plays later, however, with a 36-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Gerardo De La Cruz to Bayron Tripp.
In the first quarter, De La Cruz passed 64 yards to Tripp for a touchdown. Tripp also ran 24 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Jaden Lewis celebrates a 26-yard touchdown run in the second quarter. (Photo by Action Captures Media Group)
