Pitman High running back Mason Helwick rushed for 136 yards and two scores, and the Pride’s defense came up with a crucial stop on a two-point conversion attempt in a 28-27 victory over Central Valley (Ceres) — making first-year head coach Braden Plaa’s debut a memorable one.
“That was the game right there,” Plaa said of the two-point conversion attempt. “If we don’t get that stop, we’re looking at running a two-minute drill with just about 35 seconds left.”
A trio of Pitman defenders — Zachary Coelho, Jordan Riley and Payton Williams — were in on the tackle that preserved the Pride’s one-point lead.
The Hawks recovered the onside kick on the ensuing kickoff, but Williams and Jesse Gutierrez were able to sack CV quarterback Junior Gomez as time ran out.
“I bull-rushed my blocker off of me, and then I gave him a cross-chop,” said Williams. “I was trying to do it the whole game. It felt pretty good.”
Helwick, listed on the roster at 5-foot-8 and 170 pounds, ran like somebody twice that size.
“We’re really physical up front, and we want to be a physical team,” said Plaa. “We can throw the ball with the best of them, but we’ve got to establish the run game. And early on, Mason ran the crap out of the ball.”
Helwick, who had amassed 91 yards on the ground by halftime, capped Pitman’s opening drive of the season — a 10-play, 75-yard scoring march — with a 7-yard burst into the end zone.
“This is the most important thing ever for me,” said Helwick. “I put my life into this. This is what I love to do.”
Helwick scored Pitman’s first two touchdowns of the season, then Xadian Padilla plunged in from 1 yard out — set up by his 20-yard burst on the previous play — to make it 21-7 just before halftime.
The Hawks cut the deficit to a single score when Erik Mendoza punched in his second touchdown of the night, but the Pride stretched the lead to 28-14 when senior quarterback R.J. Wilharm hit paydirt on an 11-yard keeper.
After Gomez found Maxwell Melchner on a 21-yard scoring strike to make it 28-21, the Hawks cut the deficit to one point when Elizjha Casteel scored from the 7 with 35.1 seconds remaining — setting the stage for the Pride’s biggest defensive play of the evening.
“We played really badly the last five minutes and still won,” said Plaa. “It’s always important to get that first win, so no matter how ugly it was at times, we were able to get that first win.
“But we’ve got a lot of things to clean up.”
