Players, coaches, cheerleaders, families and fans with the Escalon Youth Cougars football program made the one hour, 45-minute drive up the hill to El Dorado High School this past weekend to take on the El Dorado Cougars. It was worth the trip as every level of play came home with a victory on Sept. 23.

Junior Novice

The youngest Cougars controlled the game from the beginning. Final score EYC 30, El Dorado 6. The running attack was unstoppable. Nathan Cruz had three rushing touchdowns and Hunter Walker had two. Brayden Bettencourt led the team defensively with five tackles. Zackariah Doty followed with four and a fumble recovery. Gunner Engstrand had three tackles. Nathaniel Cruz, Sebastian Coronado had two, and Wesley Ramirez, Grady Johnson, Jack Noack had one tackle to wrap up the game.

Novice

The Novice game was the closest game of the day. Defense would settle this battle in the hills. Both teams not willing to let the other score until the fourth quarter when Cruz Pacheco would finally find pay dirt in the end zone. Final score EYC 6, El Dorado 0. Liam Lombardi led the squad with four tackles. Eric Cardenas, Landon Machado, Andrew Machado, and Jase Govia all had one tackle. Lombardi would come up with two fumble recoveries and Grant Coble, Noah Castellanos, Brodi Moorman, Eric Cardenas had one fumble recovery.

Junior Varsity

Similar to the earliest game, EYC controlled this game all four quarters. Final score EYC 36, El Dorado 0. Five different Cougars would find the end zone in this game, Kaleb Butler scoring two touchdowns, Gavin Decroix, Kayden Owens, Julian Cruz, and Jaxon Kemp getting one of their own. Mason Rodriguez was in beast mode Saturday racking up five tackles. Gavin Decroix and Jaxon Kemp had three tackles. Easton Hunt, Becket Trimble, Parker Forest and Joseph Vasquez had two tackles. Jameson Kuykendall and Brayden Merrill would have one tackle and both would also recover a fumble each.

Varsity

This team keeps steamrolling over opponents. El Dorado is the first team to score on the Cougars this season but must note that it was on a kick return and the ‘Slaughter Squad’ have yet to give up a touchdown. The kicker with the golden boot, Ryan Huebner, was perfect again with the PAT’s putting seven through the uprights on Saturday. Scorers for the Cougars; Steven Fenton, Dylan Ball, Ian Trejo, Jake Ferreira, Archer Sanders, Dylan Machado, Carter Yates and Leo Marrufo all had touchdowns. Carter Cummings led the team in tackles with three. Leo Marrufo had an interception, tackle and a sack in the game. Carter Yates had an interception and tackle. Daniel Bass had a fumble recovery, tackle and a sack. Trey Herrera and Noah Gonsalves constantly found themselves wreaking havoc in the back field for El Dorado. Final score was EYC 56, El Dorado 6.

This article was contributed by Alonzo Trejo on behalf of the EYC program.