On an extremely hot day on the Veterans Stadium field at the Pacheco High School campus, the Los Banos Tiger varsity football team closed out their Spring practice schedule, sweeping all five games they participated in on June 28. This was the fifth year that Pacheco High has hosted the scrimmage.
Football teams from Big Valley Christian, Buhach Colony, Dos Palos, Firebaugh, Golden Valley, Los Banos, Orestimba, Pacheco Stoneridge Christian and Tranquillity, participated in the round robin scrimmage, with Firebaugh and Los Banos playing for the championship.
The Tigers opened play against the Firebaugh Eagles and came away with a 25-13 victory.
Gavin Blackwood-Estrada connected with Josh Gargano (20 receptions on the day) for the first touchdown of the game. The same duo added the 2-point conversion for an 8-0 lead.
A Donovan Greer to Elijiah Chiapetta (11 receptions on the day) touchdown upped the Tiger lead to 14-0.
Interceptions by Marcus Wheeler and Chiapetta added six more points, before Blackwood-Estrada
connected with Chiapetta for a third touchdown.
The Tigers then defeated the Buhach Colony Thunder by the score of 22-7, with Blackwood-Estrada tossing two touchdown passes to Jack Goodger (14 receptions on the day) and an Adrian Rivas interception accounting for the scoring.
Los Banos then defeated the Orestimba Warriors by the score of 19-12, with Greer connecting with Gargano and Jonathon Snapp, and an Estrada to Goodger score, and an interception by Gargano resulting in the scoring for the Tigers.
The Golden Valley Cougars were next up for Los Banos, and the Tigers claimed a 14-8 victory, with each quarterback connecting with Goodger on touchdown passes.
That set up the championship match-up with Firebaugh, who came back from that opening loss to the Tigers to face them again for the scrimmage title.
Firebaugh opened a 10-0 lead before the Tigers came back with 19 unanswered points, with the final score coming on an excellent leaping catch by Goodger with just 13 seconds left on the clock.
Two other Tiger receivers, Ryan Jones and Damien Calderon, had fine games with 5 receptions each.
Dos Palos High varsity head football coach, Rob Calvert said the team got off to good by getting the number one seed going undefeated. Unfortunately, the team came up short in the quarterfinals losing to Firebaugh by one.
Calvert said, “We got better as a team and was able to evaluate our players.”
High school football programs will now be in the “dead period” with no practice allowed for the next three weeks until they resume practice on July 21.
