Wildcats win wild opener in OT when Bearcats miss PAT
Monrovia’s Marcel Jones scores a touchdown on a 1-yard plunge in the first half against host Bonita on Friday night.
LA VERNE » You couldn’t ask for much more on the opening Friday of the high school football season.
Monrovia and Bonita each rallied in the second half, with overtime needed to settle the wild backand-forth affair, and it got wilder.
After Monrovia’s Brian Salazar Jr., scored on a 1-yard run and the Wildcats made the extra point, Bonita answered with Conor Spina’s 1-yard touchdown run on the first overtime possessions. But Spina spiked the ball after his touchdown run, drawing a 15-yard penalty on the game-tying extra point that would have sent the game to a second overtime.
Bonita’s Joe Parra missed the 35-yard extra point and Monrovia escaped with a 36-35 victory.
Monrovia survived after nearly coughing it up on regulation. The Wildcats had Bonita on the ropes, just needing a fourthand-19 stop on the Bearcats’ final drive to seal the deal with just under two minutes left. But Bonita quarterback Daniel Andrade, who threw for 361 yards, completing a game-saving 24-yard first-down pass to Noah Mikhail, and then Andrade capped the drive with a 33-yard touchdown pass to George Markossian with 1:18 left that tied the score.
All Bonita needed was an extra point to take the lead, but missed, leaving the score tied, 29-29, and sending the game to overtime. Monrovia running back Marcel Jones was good, rushing for 83 yards yards and two touchdowns, and sophomore receiver Jaylen Moore was impactful too, hauling in five receptions for 80-yards and a touchdown.
Wildacats quarterback Brian Salazar Jr. was steady throughout, throwing for 226 yards and a touchdown.
Andrade was cruising with Bonita up 16-7 after a safety and looked like he was was ready to add more points before half when he was picked off by Monrovia lineman Sonny Jaramillo, who returned it to the Bearcats’ 38.
That allowed the Wildcats to get back in it.
Jaylen Moore turned a screen pass from Hernandez into a 27-yard touchdown reception to trim the Bearcats’ lead to 16-14, and it remained that way until half. Monrovia took its first lead of the game midway through the third quarter. Noah Ellison made it possible when he wrestled what looked like an interception and turned it into a 47-yard reception to the
Bearcats’ 20.
Marcel Jones took over from there, a 13-yard run followed by a one-yard TD run to push the Wildcats ahead 22-16 after a twopoint conversion. And the Wildcats didn’t slow down, extending their lead on a Salazar pass down the left sideline to Ellison for a 42yard score and 29-16 lead, which they carried to the fourth quarter.
Bonita answered.
Daniel Andrade’s 14-yard touchdown pass to George Markossian with 6:31 left cuts Monrovia’s lead to 2923, but it could not surge ahead again. Bonita raced to a 14-0 lead in the first half. Bryan Bradshaw came up with an interception for Bonita and returned it to the Wildcats’ 12. Two plays later, Andrade cashed it in with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Jon Coulson for a 7-0 lead with 1:18 left in the quarter.