The No. 7 Pitman Pride varsity football team proved that their only loss last week was put behind them after they dominated No. 10 Davis High in the first round of the Division-I Sac-Joaquin Section Playoffs after a 40-21 stomping on Thursday night from Joe Debely Stadium.
“Yeah, last week was a big upset, but I think we really needed this win to bounce back and get some momentum after last week’s long week of practice and we did what we needed to do,” said Pitman’s Jakob Partida.
“They are a pretty good football team. I know their record was 6-4, but they are in a tough league,” said Pitman head coach Tom Tyler. “They played Sheldon and some good teams real close and beat some good teams, so they gave us some fits at times and No. 8 and No. 6 did well.”
Those numbers were sophomore quarterback Luke Carrell and junior Payne Barksdale.
Carrell had three touchdown passes and Barksdale had a pair of receiving touchdowns.
Despite this, Pitman still dominated as Payton Bass and Jakob Partida each had a pair of touchdowns for the game and Treyton Fair had a touchdown pass to Denzel Steckwren.
“I thought we played really well on defense and offensively we were moving the ball, and if we move the ball we can stay with people,” said Tyler.
The win gives Pitman their 10th win of the year as they improve to 10-1 and tie the school's most wins in a single season.
This is Pitman’s sixth playoff victory in program history, tying Turlock prior to the Bulldogs' Friday game.
The Pride opened up the game with a nine-play scoring drive that ended with a Payton Bass eight-yard run to make it 7-0 with 8:30 left in the first.
Davis bounced back on the ensuing drive on a 10-yard touchdown catch just over four minutes later to make it 7-7.
That was the only time the game was tied.
From there, Pitman took over and controlled the night.
Jakob Partida scored his first of two touchdowns with 1:09 left in the first to give Pitman a 14-7 lead.
Pitman’s Julian Lindo followed up with the third straight scoring drive after plunging it from four yards out to extend the lead to 20-7 with 10:22 left in the second.
Davis scored their penultimate touchdown on the ensuing drive from 19 yards out to make it 20-14.
Pitman then scored on a two-play drive that saw Treyton Fair connect with Denzel Steckwren for a 76-yard touchdown that made it 27-14 at the half.
Bass notched his second touchdown of the game in the third quarter after he ran it in from one yard out with 2:47 on the clock, extending the lead to 34-14.
Davis scored their third and final touchdown with 7:31 remaining in the game that made it 34-21.
The game was put to a close when Jakob Partida completed a statue of liberty play that was called back just four plays earlier, but the second time around it wasn’t called back as he ran it in from 18 yards out to make it 40-21.
“Good game, but I thought it would be more challenging. We just came out really positive and our momentum kept us going,” said Partida. “We put our heads down and kept rolling and kept running up the scoreboard.”
Pitman will next take on No. 2 Monterey Trail on the road at 7 p.m. Friday.
“I don’t know much about Monterey Trail except that they are really darn good...we are going to enjoy this for a minute and prepare for MT. I know we'll have our hands full,” said Tyler.
“It wouldn’t be the first time we are the underdogs, but we were underdogs in league and expected to lose several games so we are going to play like us and we don’t care what anyone thinks,” added Partida. “These are all my brothers and we will play for each other, and if we do what we do and come out with a win that would be nice, but we are going to play for us.”
