Every week brings answers. It also creates a whole new set of questions.
That’s the fun of a high school football season. There are reactions, overreactions and takeaways as San Joaquin County teams continue to show what they might become.
And then there are the numbers that make you look twice.
Some belong in a video game, the kind you might put up with Madden or EA Sports College Football set to easy mode. Others may not seem quite as unreal but still find a way to fill nearly every corner of the stat sheet.
Here are The Record’s biggest takeaways, reactions and top individual performances from Week 3.
Key Takeaways
Remember who runs the SJAA?
For three nonleague games, MaxPreps rankings suggested Chavez might have company atop the SJAA. Then league play started.
The back-to-back champions beat McNair 56-38 behind the same duo at the center of those two title runs, with Elijah Walker throwing for 337 yards and four touchdowns and Oregon State commit Jackson Batch adding 124 receiving yards and two scores. Consider Chavez the clear favorite again.
Welcome back to Wide Receiver U
No Alonzo Ward for the third straight game? No problem for Edison’s seemingly endless receiver room. Kailan Beaver had 126 yards and two touchdowns, Travis Gresham went for 112 and a score, Faitupe Sagapolu added 68 yards and two touchdowns and Bill Waller scored another. How ridiculous did it get? Edison hung 41 points in the first quarter on Pleasant Grove on its way to a 62-21 win. Just imagine what happens when a receiver with six Division I offers returns.
You get an interception. And you get an interception.
Four picks in one game sounds ridiculous until county teams start doing it everywhere. Ben Medhurst had two, Elijah Lambdin one and Tyler Van Elderen a 73-yard pick-six as Ripon Christian beat previously undefeated Pioneer of Woodland 21-7. MJ Torio, Jesse Martinez and Aiden Howe grabbed one apiece for East Union, while Elias Lopez took his 105 yards to the house in a 42-0 win over Enochs. Lincoln had four more in its 33-21 win over West Park. River Islands apparently thought four wasn’t enough and grabbed five. More on that below.
River Islands already made history. Now comes the fun part
It took River Islands an entire season to set a program record with three wins last year. This group needed four games to break it. Daryl Carpenter threw for 329 yards and four touchdowns, while Darien East posted his fourth straight 120-yard receiving game with 127 yards and three scores in a 41-2 win over Mountain House that moved the Riptide to 4-0. Six games still remain, and MaxPreps currently ranks River Islands ahead of three of those opponents. How much more history is coming?
What in the world happened in Reno?
Remember that “a year away” thing? Escalon apparently didn’t want to leave any doubt. One week after stunning Oakdale, the Cougars traveled to Nevada and trailed Damonte Ranch 19-14 late before Ian Trejo caught a pass at Escalon’s 31-yard line and flipped it to Dylan Ball, who raced down the sideline for the winning touchdown. The result? A 20-19 win of MaxPreps’ No. 22 team in Nevada and Escalon’s second straight shocker.
Video Game Numbers
Ayden McClendon, Edison — Go ahead and bump the difficulty up a level because McClendon made this look way too easy. The sophomore quarterback completed 17 of 24 passes for 346 yards and six touchdowns with one interception, helping Edison hang 62 points on Pleasant Grove in a 62-21 rout.
Michael Figueroa, River Island — Catch the ball from his own quarterback or the other one, Figueroa didn’t seem to care. The senior hauled in three interceptions while adding 27 receiving yards and a touchdown in a 41-2 win over Mountain House.
Brody Carabello, Manteca — Manteca has won more games than anyone in Sac-Joaquin Section history, and Carabello made No. 648 one to remember. The sophomore accounted for five touchdowns, throwing for 143 yards and four scores while rushing for 72 yards and another in a 50-14 win over Chico.
Shawn San, McNair — Chavez kept scoring, and San kept giving McNair a reason to believe it could answer. The junior quarterback threw for a career-high 370 yards and five touchdowns on 31-of-54 passing in a 56-38 loss to the back-to-back SJAA champions.
Izzac Tapia, Chavez — Apparently Tapia only needed one night to nearly match what took him the first three games to produce. After totaling 206 yards and three touchdowns through Chavez’s tough non league slate, the senior exploded for 185 yards and three scores on 16 carries, including a 97-yard touchdown, in a 56-38 win over McNair.
Stat Sheet Stuffers
Stagg called it a “must-win,” so it fed Darnell Holmes. The senior churned out 136 yards and a touchdown on 31 carries, then caught the game-winning 8-yard score to finish off Tokay 22-20.
Want a constant behind Tracy’s rise to 4-0? Look no further than David Grisham. The senior topped 110 rushing yards for the fourth straight game with 131 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries in a 49-17 win over Ripon.
Those 11 first-place track finishes last spring weren’t for nothing. Blama Kamara showed off that speed with a 99-yard touchdown, finishing with a career-high 156 receiving yards in Sierra’s 28-21 overtime win over Gregori.
Talk about making the most of an opportunity. With McNair’s star receiver out, Josiah Hargrove exploded for 138 yards and two touchdowns on eight catches in a 56-38 loss to Chavez.
Touch the ball, find the end zone. That was Gunnar Fay’s night. The junior caught two passes for 29 yards and two touchdowns and added a scoop-and-score in East Union’s 42-0 shutout of Enochs.
This article originally appeared on The Record: San Joaquin County football Week 3 takeaways and top performances
