Porterville High football coach Keith Thompson is still looking for his team to put together a complete football game. When his team does, he says watch out.
Even though the Panthers were never really seriously threatened by Mt. Whitney, PHS let the Pioneers hang around in the second half. After putting together a complete first half in building a 21-0 halftime lead, PHS couldn’t put together a complete game but still was able to beat the Pioneers 28-19 on Friday at Jamison Stadium.
“We’re just trying to put together a complete game, that’s what we’re looking for,” Thompson said. “I think we can be really good if we put together a complete game.”
PHS quarterback Ethan Enriquez continued to put up big numbers as he completed 16-of-24 passes for 300 yards and four touchdowns. Enriquez completed his first 10 passes on his way to another big game.
“We just attacked their weaknesses. We did see a lot of stuff on film,” said Enriquez about exploiting the holes in Mt. Whitney’s pass defense.
But Enriquez agreed with his coach’s critique about the second half. “The second half should have been a lot better for us,” he said.
Enriquez was 4-for-4 for 72 yards on the opening drive of the game, finishing the drive with a 22-yard scoring pass to Jonathan Ruiz who caught the first of his two touchdown passes. It was the second straight breakout game for Ruiz, who also had a big game last week in Porterville’s 43-14 win over El Diamante. Kristian Esquivel, who was 4-of-4 on extra points, added the PAT to give the Panthers (7-2, 2-2 in the East Yosemite League) a 7-0 lead.
Dillan Williams intercepted a pass at the PHS 15 for Porterville and returned it to the Panther 42 on the Pioneers ensuing drive. On the first play after the interception Enriquez found tight Brayden Della down the middle for a 33-yard gain.
Mark Salinas later followed with a 10-yard run down to the Pioneer 10 and on the next play Enriquez hit Ruiz on a 10-yard scoring pass to give the Panthers a 14-0 lead. On Mt. Whitney’s ensuing drive Jace DeSoto had two sacks for a total loss of 20 yards to force the Pioneers to punt and Enriquez took over from their, hitting Solomon Silva on a 43-yard touchdown pass to give PHS a 21-0 lead.
“We liked the matchups,” said Thompson about his team’s passing game going up against Mt. Whitney’s pass defense. “Ethan did a good job of finding guys.”
Thompson has said his team has athletes that can make for an explosive offense and it comes down to “getting these guys in the open field where their able to make plays.”
Mt. Whitney, though, came back to score on its opening drive of the second half, capped when Adrian Huerta hit quarterback Micah Rodriguez on a quarterback eligible on a 5-yard scoring pass to cut the deficit to 21-7. PHS looked like it was going to stay in control when Izaya Welsh took a middle screen from Enriquez and went 21 yards into the end zone.
But PHS was called for an illegal block in the back on the play and the drive ended up stalling. Rodriguez then hit Israel Briggs on a 45-yard pass play to make things interesting. But the PHS defense stiffened as the drive stalled at the Panther 24.
Enriquez then hit Welsh down the middle on a 68-yard scoring strike to give PHS enough breathing room and a 28-7 lead with 10:11 left in the game. But Mt. Whitney answered quickly, scoring on a 32-yard pass from Rodriguez to Devon Guy with 7:17 left. The PAT failed, leaving the score at 28-13.
The Pioneers went onto score on a 1-yard run by Kysen Sing with 1:33 left. But Mt. Whitney failed again on the extra point, leaving it as a two-score game as the Pioneers trailed 28-19.
Christian Tapia then recovered the onside kick for PHS. But instead of just running the ball to run out the clock, Thompson had enough trust in Enriquez to make decisions on run-pass options and Enriquez completed two straight passes to Ruiz for a total of 25 yards. It was then Thompson shouted out to Enriquez “No RPO” and Porterville ran the ball on the final play of the game.
“Just taking what they give us for sure,” said Enriquez about his decision to throw the ball on the RPOs.
“That’s what the offense is,” Thompson said. “He has the freedom. He did a great job. They’re all completions.”
Rodriguez completed 23-of-33 passes for 291 yards. Angel Avalos was the leading rusher for PHS with 40 yards on eight carries.
