Grizzlies post another shutout at home
GHHS football headed to playoffs
Ten seasons of losing football — over.
A lifetime spent never beating Woodlake High — done away with.
A chance to win a CIF Central Section playoff game for the first time in forever — within Granite Hills’ reach, at long last.
The Grizzlies put every unhappy streak to rest once and for all Thursday with a 13-0 victory over Woodlake at Rankin Stadium, putting a violent bow on an 8-2 regular season filled with all sorts of new streaks worth extending.
Their record at home this season: perfect, at 6-0.
Points allowed in those six games: 12, with this marking their fifth home shutout.
“Things have changed,” senior Jordan Flores said, and have they ever.
Granite Hills quadrupled their victory total from last season under first-year coach Dan Williams, and at 3-2, posted the program’s first winning record in six years of East Sequoia League play.
Now, they wait to hear their seeding and opponent Saturday for the Division VI playoffs. First, let Flores enjoy the senior-night moment for a minute — because no player had more to smile about than Flores on Thursday.
Nursing a 6-0 lead with less than 5 minutes left to play, it was Flores who ran down a Woodlake pass for an interception deep in Grizzlies’ territory, his Div. Vi-leading eighth interception of the year.
Four plays later, it was Flores who took the 4th-and-1 snap at punter, faked a kick, and ran left and up the field for 5 yards and a first down at the Tigers 38 — setting up the decisive 33-yard touchdown run by senior running back Seth Luna for the 13-0 lead with 2:21 to play.
Throughout, it was Flores who set up his own defense with his own phenomenal punting that forced Woodlake to face short drives on long fields. Five of his six punts bounced inside Woodlake’s 11-yard line, and the sixth punt travelled 48 yards from the Grizzlies’ own 16 to reset field position.
With 90-plus yards to gain over and again, Woodlake never stood a fighting chance, not against a defense that hasn’t given up a point at Rankin Stadium in 13 consecutive quarters.
“It felt good to shut them out like that,” Flores said.
How complete was this blank job?
In the first half, Woodlake had the ball five for drives — well, maybe drive is too ambitious a word. The results: one first down, 21 yards of total offense on 23 plays with four three-andouts. They actually lost ground.
The end result: the Tigers were held to 103 yards of total offense, and never got inside the Granite Hills 30-yard line.
“We just worked together as a team,” Flores said.
The defense was so good, that it was impossible for anyone to stand out. Sure, Flores had his pick, and Luna added his own interception on Woodlake’s final offensive play of the game.
But otherwise, the Grizzlies were a faceless swarm of defenders who swallowed ball carriers whole between the hashes and crushed the pads of wide receivers on short screen passes.
They were so impenetrable, that when senior running back Jasper Berumen scored on a 1-yard touchdown on the game’s opening drive — even with the ensuing failed two-point conversion — there was the sense six points was all the Grizzlies defense needed to win the game.
When Granite Hills’ offense failed to score on two red-zone drives, no worries. When Flores was stopped on a fake punt run earlier in the game, no problem.
When a Berumen touchdown run was wiped out by a penalty, whatever.
When Woodlake held 1,000-yard rusher Berumen under 50 yards, big deal.
The team long accustomed losing Something-to-nothing for all those years is now the team that puts the hurt on others. After all, you can’t lose a game when the other team can never score.
“It feels great,” Flores said.