Escalon gets back on winning track with TVL win over Modesto Christian
Four weeks playing against top teams in the Central, North Coast and Sac-Joaquin sections could wear out any team. A letdown at some point is almost expected.
In the Trans-Valley League, letdown could mean a loss, and Escalon learned that the hard way.
After narrowly losing to Buchanan of Fresno and beating Windsor and Kimball, the Cougars opened league play with back-to-back losses against two of their toughest rivals, Hughson and Hilmar.
“We exerted a lot of energy the first five, six weeks,” Escalon coach Andrew Beam said. “Now it’s time to regroup and refocus.
“We learned some tough lessons in the last two weeks. It’s the TVL — if you don’t show up, you can get beat on any given night and this group was reminded of that in back-to-back weeks. It was a humble reminder that you have to work day in and day out for the things you want to achieve.”
The Cougars (4-3, 1-2) got back on track with a 62-30 win over Modesto Christian (5-3, 1-3) Thursday night.
The game was close only in the beginning.
Junior Jamin Miller left his mark on the evening. The two-way running back and linebacker had two pick sixes and a 28-yard rushing touchdown in the win.
Not to be outdone, senior Logan Anderson caught a first-quarter punt on the run and weaved through the Crusaders’ punt coverage, reversed field and 68 yards later found himself in the end zone for a highlight of his own.
“It was a good bounce back and confidence booster,” said Miller. “Even after two losses, we came in confident that we could do what we had to do and hopefully we can get it rolling. We knew that we don’t lose two times in a row very often and we had to bounce back and keep the confidence high and do our job.”
Escalon was able to play nearly everyone on its roster, getting both starters valuable rest and backups meaningful playing time should their number need to be called down the line.
Josh Graham played most of his snaps this season on defense as the junior came into the evening with three carries for 29 yards. Thursday night, he exploded for 172 yards and two second-half touchdowns on eight carries.
“We moved the ball and we were more physical than we were the past couple of weeks,” Beam said. “It was nice to get everybody in and see the (second team) be able to run the offense and run it smoothly.”
The Cougars qualify for the postseason with their fourth win Thursday, but the battle for playoff positioning is far from over. The final two league games against Ripon and Livingston could be critical.
“We want to keep our composure, stay humble and not get too far ahead of ourselves because we still have a lot of games to play,” Miller said.
Escalon plays Riverbank next week.
“We’re gonna focus on one at a time and not look ahead,” Beam said. “This is one in a row and the goal is to get two in a row, start that winning streak and keep it rolling. We’ll let things shake out as they do.”
This story was originally published October 7, 2022 at 9:55 AM.
