Friday night marked a historic night for Turlock High’s varsity football head coach James Peterson, who picked up his 50th career victory with the Bulldogs after his squad rolled through El Capitan in their second league contest of the year, winning 64-16.
“I am just always happy for the school, for Turlock High School, all the victories we get for Turlock are great,” said Peterson. “And I get to see these guys after games with smiles on their faces and that is what it’s all about, small town football.”
This small town of football has continued their winning ways in the Central California Conference, having won nine straight CCC contests dating back to 2015.
With Friday’s win, Turlock is now 16-2 over their last 18 CCC matchups, losing only to Merced High in 2014 and 2015.
Turlock improves to 4-2 overall for the year and 2-0 in the CCC.
They have also outscored EC the last two years 118-16, after shutting them out last year 54-0 back on Sept. 30, 2016.
Although it didn’t seem like Turlock would have the same luck after EC opened up the game with a 15-play scoring run, but the Bulldog defense held them to a field goal to go down 3-0.
It was the only deficit of the game for Turlock, which went on to outscore EC 64-13 to close it out.
Jonah Kosakiewicz rushed for a 15-yard scamper for the first score for Turlock to put them up 8-3 after a two-point conversion was good.
Turlock scored in seven of their eight drives of the game, including a punt return for a touchdown from Dominic Nunes for the second score after a 54-yard return in the first quarter with four minutes on the clock to make it 15-3.
Lucas Curtis scored on an 11-yard run for the third score and Mark Flores broke free for a three-yard run to make it 29-9 while Tyler Etharidge also scored on an 11-yard run with 2:03 on the clock to make it 36-9.
Kosakiewics connected with Dustin Grein for a 31-yard touchdown pass with under 41 seconds left in the first half and Garret Fountain returned an interception for a touchdown to give the ‘Dogs a 50-9 lead at halftime.
“I love seeing all the ‘Dogs coming off the sidelines and everyone got to play tonight and like I said, great team victory in all phases, offense, special teams and defense,” said Peterson. “All of it… they did their thing tonight and everyone did their job.”
Turlock outgained EC in total yards on offense in the first half 235-162.
The Bulldogs opened up the third quarter with a 10-play scoring drive that ended with a Fabio Gutierrez two-yard run to extend the lead to 57-9.
EC scored just once more on the ensuing drive, but once again, Turlock responded with another scoring drive in the fourth quarter that ended with a Nunes eight-yard run to end it 64-16.
Peterson also becomes just the fifth coach to join the 50-wins club in football at Turlock High.
Next, Turlock will host Golden Valley at 7 p.m. Friday.
“It’s the same as it is every week, our preparation doesn’t change,” Peterson added. “We want to go after it just like we get after everybody, we want to push ourselves to be better and that is what we teach to get better every day and I posted in the locker room, ‘what have you done to get better today?’ and that is our philosophy, humility.”
