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Chris Terrence's Weekly Blog

Crowds Getting Bigger For Valley HS Football
By Chris Terrence

High school football is getting rave reviews in the Central Valley this year. There are many good teams playing excellent football and there has been no shortage of fan interest as we are now heading into the fourth week of this season. I have to say “Hat’s off” to our boss, Gary Cocola, at KGMC-TV (C43, Comcast Ch 10) and KJEO-TV(non-cable Ch 32), who is leading us into our third year of televising games on CBC stations, and also a big salute to Comcast Cable for airing our games and producing and airing more on Comcast Cable Ch 14. Also, you can now hear live broadcasts of games on three radio stations in Fresno: KXEX-AM (1550), KCBL-AM(1340) and ESPN1430, plus you can catch up on all the scores from around the Valley on Friday
nights on those stations as well as on Local TV stations (Ch 24, 26,30, and 47). You are covered, Central Valley, and you can read about it all in the Fresno Bee and in your local newspapers. It’s a great year for football and the excitement level is high.

This past week, Fred Clark was on a well deserved vacation in Hawaii, and well known former coach, Ray Reyes, sat in for for Fred as the color man for the game between Clovis East and Bullard on Thursday night on Comcast. And what a great game it was! High school football at it’s best. A huge crowd filled up both sides of McLane Stadium and the fans were not disappointed. The first half was a great battle that ended in a 15-15 tie. Both teams played excellent on both sides of the ball. The Knights and the Timberwolves both showed what well-coached and disciplined teamwork can do. Clovis East drew first blood on a QB sneak from a yard out by Eric Roberts. Coach Tim Murphy followed that up with a little surprise by going for a two point sucessful conversion by Andrew Pancotti. Then it was Bullard’s turn, getting a short TD run from Kenny Hendrington that was followed up by Coach Don Arax’s decision to also go for a 2 point conversion which was also
successful by Hedrington. On the next score, Pancotti returned to the endzone for a TD, followed by a Phillip Torres kick for the extra point. Then, just before the half, Alex Huerta finds big Anthony McCoy (he’s not hard to find) in the endzone and an extra point kick by Huerta tied it all up again. It was a great half of football and the crowd was having a fun time. In the second half the Timberwolves put up 10 points on a 16 yard TD scamper by DJ Savoy and a 36 yard field goal from Torres to close out the scoring. The game was a rugged one with lots of big plays and tough defense. Our players of the game on the broadcast were Tracy Slocum who romped for 123 yards on 18 carries for the Timberwolves, and Kenny Hedrington for the Knights.

The next night, September 23rd, we had another huge crowd on hand at Grizzlies Stadium in downtown Fresno to witness the Clovis West - Edison game. Again, it was a TV game to be seen on Cocola Broadcasting and Comcast Cable. Fred Clark was back from Hawaii and the top of his tanned, bald and shinning head could be seen like a beacon all over the stadium from the press box. The first half of the game was close as the Golden Eagles took a 13 to 7 lead into the locker room at the break. Kyle Duffy scored two TD’s, one on a 47-yard run, and one on a 17 yard pass from Beau Sweeney. Edison scored on a 4 yard run by Charles Amadi and both teams played some outstanding defense in that first half and it looked like it was going to be a close game. Well, it wasn’t. Coach Jim Hartigan of the defending Division One Valley Champion Golden Eagles made some adjustments on the defense and that, along with some special teams mistakes by the Tigers, the Eagles scored 36 consecutive points to turn a close game into a rout. Our players of the game? Kyle Duffy was an easy choice for the Eagles, as he turned a great game on offense, rushing for 161 yards on 14 carries, scoring 4 touchdowns, and playing an excellent game on defense. For the Tigers it was running back Charles Amadi. Guy Haberman continues to do a good job as our sidline reporter and Anthony Wiltrado, football beat writer for the Fresno Bee was out halfime guest.

Yet another huge crowd (so many all over the Valley this year) was on hand at McLane Stadium as the Hoover Patriots remained undefeated at 3-0 by beating a game McLane Highlander team, 28 to 12. The Patriots once again were led by their leader, QB Mike Cervantes, who is having an outstanding year to date. The three year starter once again ran, passed, led the defense, and did whatever else he had to do for the win. I still get a kick out of the fact that Cervantes, at 5’9” tall, and at 160 pounds does all that and is the team’s long snapper on punts as well. This kid does everything but manufacture the chin straps for the helmets. Other names are also being heard often in reference to head coach Rick Lyon’s team this year: Vincent Andrews, Michael Ward, Jordan Lett, and Greg Chartier, just to name a few. Props also to the much improved McLane team under coach Dave Barton as the Highlanders develop. Brian Prieto is looking good at quarterback and so is running back Douglas Howard.................This weeks big “upset” game was played in Visalia as Immanuel HS of Reedley went down and knocked off the team with the longest winning streak in the Valley, Central Valley Christian, 29-28 in an overtime thriller. Tim Cowdry kicked an extra point after Josh Fixel tied the game in overtime with a one yard blast. With the loss went CVC’s 29-game winning streak.........Meawhile undefeated Yosemite came down from the mountains long enough to beat an also improving Roosevelt team. A 90 yard Brad Wilkinson kickoff return proved to be the start of a bad second quarter for the Rough Riders where the Badgers scored 31 points. The bright spot for the Rough Riders was the 178 yards Angel Audello ran for.......We are looking forward to televising the McLane vs Roosevelt game on October 13th. Both teams are on a steady diet of improvement as coaches Jo Jo Reyes of the Rough Riders and Dave Barton of McLane have their squads rough and ready to play.

Meanwhile, in other games in week three, Clovis came back from that tough loss to Bullard last week, with a 14-0 victory over a tough Stockdale (Bakersfield) team at Lamonica. The Cougars solid defense remains tough and the offense got good games from their dual quarterbacks, Ronny Torres and Brett Behlan......Central came back from it’s loss to Hoover with a 26-0 shutout over Fresno High. Interesting note: That game between the Grizzlies and the Warriors was tied 0-0 at the half.......Chowchilla stays undefeated at 3-0 with a 38-21 win over Patterson......Liberty-Madera Ranchos, the new kids on the block, moved to 3 and 1 on the season with a victory over Riverdale, 23-16 as Brandon Graham ran for a 73 yard touchdown with just 38 seconds left in the game!!! .........Madera High won again, this time 56 to 34 over Redwood, while, surprisingly, San Joanquin Memorial fell to 0 and 3 with a 28-17 loss to Monanche, which is now 3 and 0...............Injury riddled Tulare Western also fell to 0 and 3 with a 44-14 loss to Burroughs of Ridgecrest......Buchanan dropped to 1 and 2 with a 30 to 6 loss to Bakersfield at the BEC...This Friday we will have the Buchanan Bears vs the Edison Tigers game as our TV game of the week. Should be a good contest as the two powerful teams look to get back in the win column......... Fowler continues to show improvement with a big rivalry win over neighbor Selma, 48-33 behind Johnny Mendoza and Santana Leal....Sunnyside goes to 2 and 1 with a 26-7 big win in giving Washington Union it’s first loss of the season.....Kingsburg beat Orosi 44-0 to stay perfect at 3 and 0.....and me and my brother Philip knocked off my other brothers, Brad and Bruce in 4 man touch game for the world championship......again.

Before I go I want to wish Coach Tim Murphy luck and the Clovis East Timberwolves fly out to Texas to play the legendary Midland Lee High School Rebels on Saturday night. By the way that’s the Midland Robert E. Lee (named after the guy on the gray horse) Rebels. As I am sure you know by now, Midland Lee was the subject of the “Friday Night Lights” movie, starring Billy Bob Thornton, and telling of the tale of the Rebels winning the national championship in 1999. The school has a great tradition having won the Texas State Championship in 1998, 1999, and 2000. These guys have been in the playoffs for most of the past 30 years. They play in a beautiful new stadium called Granite Stadium that holds 18,000 raving lunatic fans. At least one planeload of those lunatics will be yelling for Clovis East.... This year the Rebels of Midland Lee have a record of 1 and 3 so far and
that’s enough for the state to be deep into an investigation into the matter all the way to the Capitol in Austin....The fact that they lost to Dallas Kimball, Abilene, and Odessa, three Texas powers with no losses between them, is no excuse. Head coach Randy Quisenberry relies a lot on the running of Trent Hines, a powerful runner on last year’s Rebels who went 8-3, losing to Mansfield 29-28 in the district final. Quisenberry has lost his cafeteria privileges, and has had to mow a lot of lawns for the current record showing and who knows what his punishment will be in that Texas humidity for any more losses this year. So the rebels of Texas will be looking for the Timberwolves of Central California and they won’t have to look far. Go California! Go Central Valley! Go Fresno County! Go Clovis East! Go get ‘em Wolves!

Chris Terrence

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