Marauders knock off Panthers
Monache headed to first playoffs since 2012
For the third year in the row, the Monache High School football team knocked off rival Porterville in their historic Granite Bowl with a 35-9 rout of the Panthers at Jacob Rankin Stadium in the final East Yosemite League game of the season.
But this year’s win tastes a lot sweeter for the Marauders (3-6, 2-3 EYL) who shredded the Panthers’ (3-6, 1-4 EYL) chances of making the CIF Central Section Division IV playoffs and instead punched their own ticket to the Div. IV playoffs. This will be Monache’s first trip to the playoffs since 2012.
“I’m happy for Marauder nation,” first-year head coach Chris Frankland said. “It’s been awhile and we want to have that feeling back at this school. That’s one of our expectations and one of our goals. We found a lot of ways to lose this year, but you know they’re coming together. We’re playing good football and who knows but we told them ‘You gotta be in it to win it.’ And we had to take care of business tonight and we did. So I was really happy for them.”
The Marauders got it done in the second half after erasing a 9-7 Panthers’ lead with a 45-yard touchdown pass from MHS junior quarterback Antonio Andrade to star senior wide receiver Montrece Fields on their first drive of the half. Andrade and Fields connected again for a 2-point conversion and a 15-9 lead.
Monache had themselves a day in the third quarter and scored on three out of four of their drives that were all started in Porterville territory after the Marauders’ defense kept the Panthers from crossing midfield more than once.
“At halftime we kind of made some adjustments,” Frankland said. “I think our coaching staff did a really good job. Defensively coach [Carl] Scudder did a great job of kind of taking away that quarterback lead that they were running and our offensive coaches we kind of talked about some of the things that we liked. We got fortunate to kind of hit some of that stuff in the second half.”
After punting on their second drive, Monache got the ball back on the Panthers’ 39-yard and an Andrade 34-yard pass to junior wide receiver Nicholas Villareal set up a 3-yard touchdown run from sophomore running back Aidan Galvan.
On the next Marauders’ drive that began on the Panthers’ 29-yard line a 22-yard pass from Andrade to Fields put Monache on the 2-yard line and allowed sophomore running back Treyvon Bradford to score his first touchdown of the game. The Marauders went up 27-9 after Galvan scored on a 2-point conversion.
Monache sealed the win on the second play of the final quarter when senior cornerback Marlon Jones picked off PHS sophomore quarterback Tanner Jones. From the Panthers’ 36-yard, Monache worked their way to the 12-yard line where an Andrade handoff to Galvan led to the final touchdown of the game.
Andrade, who led the Marauders to a 21-20 Granite Bowl victory last year, thanked God for his performance and added that the whole team played well.
“This was a good game,” he said. “We got one more down, so I’m just going to put this win behind me and we’re looking forward for next week.”
With the win, Monache completed a full-level sweep of Porterville with their freshmen (428) and junior varsity (2821) teams defeating the Panthers on Friday.
A 2-yard touchdown run from senior quarterback Joey Sandoval and a field goal from senior kicker Brian Gil in the second quarter to answer a 44-yard firstquarter touchdown pass to Fields were the Panthers’ only scores.
“This win means the world,” Fields said. “I couldn’t image walking out of here with a loss.”