Modesto’s one-two punch of Berumen, Howard too much for Modesto Christian
Senior RJ Berumen ran for two touchdowns and passed for another to lead the Modesto High football team to a 26-14 victory over Modesto Christian in the season opener on Friday night.
Last year, Berumen split snaps with Norvale Howard at quarterback most of the season.
This year it looks like Berumen will take the snaps at quarterback and Howard, also a senior, will play slot receiver. Howard also is the Panthers’ starting free safety.
“They’re both great athletes, great kids,” said first-year head coach Brett Wagner. “Norvale is such an amazing safety, he makes a major contribution on both sides of the ball.
“I’m blessed to have two really good guys.”
Both were really good Friday night, with Berumen running the read-option to perfection and Howard making highlight-reel plays nearly every time he touched the ball.
Berumen ran for 134 yards, including TD runs of 58 and 7 yards, and opened the scoring with a 46-yard TD pass to Connor Cruce.
Howard ran for 104 yards on 11 carries, and spearheaded a Modesto defense that limited Modesto Christian to two second-quarter touchdowns.
A slow start proved costly for Modesto Christian, which trailed 13-0 after Berumen’s first TD run.
The Crusaders pulled within 13-7 on a 21-yard TD run by Isaac Schinmann, but on the first play of the ensuing drive Berumen faked a handoff on the read-option and bolted 58 yards to the end zone.
The Crusaders pulled withing 20-14 on Rory Hanson’s TD pass to Schinmann on the final play of the second quarter.
The game was full of mishaps and penalties, the biggest being a questionable call for a block in the back. With Modesto in the red zone, Berumen’s pass was intercepted byJose Hernandez and returned 95 yards for an apparent touchdown.
But the block in the back call – see the 56-second mark here – nullified the score. MC was then forced to punt and the Panthers put the game away with Daeveon Graves’ 4-yard touchdown run.
“Self-inflicted wounds was a great analogy of what happened,” MC coach Mike Parsons said. “We had a pick six ... we thought we had a clean block, but we can’t make that block; we had another pick six we dropped ...”
“MoHigh has some athletes, got some guys that we didn’t get on the ground and they hurt us.”
There was plenty to be excited about for MC fans, with the continued development of 6-foot-4 quarterback Hanson, good size up front and some dynamic talent at the skill positions. Things won’t get any easier on the schedule next week, with Captial Christian coming to town in the Crusaders’ home opener.
Modesto travels to Stockton next Friday to take on Stagg.
This story was originally published August 25, 2017 at 11:37 PM with the headline "Modesto’s one-two punch of Berumen, Howard too much for Modesto Christian."