Almaden Resident

Sports

Mustangs spoil homecoming for Branham with 48-12 win

By Kevin Sparrer

There's nothing better than going to another team's homecoming game and spoiling it.

The Pioneer Mustang's discovered that on Saturday when they traveled to the home of the Branham Bruins. Though Branham struck first, the game was all the Mustangs after that as Pioneer rolled 48-12 to ruin the Bruins homecoming event.

Scoring wise it was all Steven Lopes and Marquee Heffner. Of the seven touchdowns scored by the Mustangs, three each were scored by the two backs, and only one of the runs was within 20 yards of the end zone.

Lopes took the ball the majority of the time with 11 carries for 154 yards and three scores. His first score came from 33 yards out to give the Mustangs the lead they would never relinquist. His second score came in the second quarter, and he ran from the far side of the field for this one. Lopes broke an 80-yard run for a touchdown. His final score came toward the end of the third quarter and was from six yards out.

Heffner extended the lead for the Mustangs. Heffner scored from 23 yards away on a run to end the first quarter and then again from 26 yards to start the second. His final touchdown came in the fourth quarter when he broke his longest run of the day, a 44-yard touchdown dash. Heffner ran the ball only seven times for 134 yards on the day.

Kyle Burchfiel hammered the ball through the upright 6 of 7 times for the Mustangs.

Shane Murray also scored for Pioneer, running one in from 28 yards out.

Murray had the most carries for Pioneer, touching the ball 14 times and running for 94 yards. He also caught three passes from Chris Foley for 69 yards. Foley completed five passes for 62 yards.

Matt Baldwin also took the ball in hand three times for the Mustangs and ran 29 yards.

The Mustangs ran all over the Bruin defense with 482 yards on the ground and they added 103 in the air. Pioneer had 585 yards on offense, while the Bruins finished with 324 but only 61 yards rushing.

Joe Alise ran once for 15 yards, Nico Pagan had four touches for 10 yards, Miles Babcock had one carry for two yards and Foley ran once for 21 yards. Adam Bowers took the ball twice for six yards, Ryan Victor ran once for three yards and Jossan Torales had two touches for 14 yards.

Defensively for the Mustangs it was Jesse Herrera who controlled the flow. Herrera had eight stops for the Mustangs, including a quarterback sack.

Lopes and Jordan Barnes also did well on defense with five stops each. Lopes recorded two sacks among those five tackles. Jason Wetzel did his job on the line with five tackles, including two sacks. Burchfiel also had three tackles in the win. Jossan Torales also had a sack for the Mustangs.

In the secondary was Murray and Chad Dreher, who made the Branham quarterback pay. Both Murray and Dreher picked off passes to help the Mustangs toward the win.

Pioneer will now travel to Live Oak on Oct. 27 for a 7 p.m. kick-off, hoping to add to its record of 3-1 in the Mt. Hamilton Division of the Blossom Valley Athletic League. The Mustangs are 4-3 overall this year. The Acorns are 1-3 in division play and 3-4 for the season following a 21-13 win over Independence last week.