The second season of girl’s flag football in the Central California Athletic League began Wednesday at Joe Debely Stadium with Turlock High dismantling Modesto High, 60-0.
Bulldog quarterback Josslyn Crittenden lit up the scoreboard by scoring six total touchdowns on the night — five through the air and one on the ground. The freshman passed for 146 yards on 11 completions, with her primary target being sophomore Makenli Watt, who made a share of acrobatic catches and scores.
On Turlock’s second drive of the game, Crittenden aired out a 14-yard strike above Watt’s head, with the receiver doing her best Randy Moss impression by jumping high above the Modesto defender to haul in the catch for the first points of the night.
Crittenden found Watt again for a 25-yard score midway through the second quarter.
Watt let her legs do most of the work on her second touchdown, catching a pass roughly 15 yards down the field before evading multiple defenders for a 51-yard score.
Watt forced a running clock when she had a 27-yard reception early in the fourth quarter, making it a 46-0 game.
“Makenli is aggressive, always going to go get the ball, which is nice to have,” said Turlock head coach Aaron King. “Last year, she came about halfway through the season up to varsity as a freshman. To go out and get going right away today was great.”
Also starting off the season on a high note was junior Mia Valencia, who plays both sides of the ball. She scored early in the game with a 3-yard touchdown run, but her biggest impact came on defense, as he had six tackles and five sacks.
“She's our workhorse. She doesn’t want to come off the field. She made a bet with me that she could play both sides of the ball and never slow down. I'm still winning the bet because he slows down a little bit, but of course, I'm subjective,” King joked. “Whoever wins gets breakfast or some sort of meal.”
Junior Natalie Ledesma added seven tackles.
King believes the elimination of the no-run zones and the implementation of immediate blitzes and shield blocking has opened the door for a much more run-heavy game, thus allowing defenders closer to the line of scrimmage to make more plays.
It seemed like everything went in Turlock’s favor, even when some plays didn’t go quite according to plan. It was perfectly encapsulated before halftime when Crittenden passed the ball 30 yards downfield to junior Alondra Medel in the end zone. The ball was bobbled, and as a Modesto defender tried swatting it to the ground, Medel pinned the ball against her leg, maintaining control with feet inbounds for the score.
Other touchdown scorers were junior Marley Hernandez (20-yard TD rush) and senior CJ Vincent (15-yard pick-6).
“When we are clicking together, we’re a team that just does good things,” King said. “We have a lot of returns from last year, but we did lose a lot of seniors. Either way, we have a young team. We have a freshman as a quarterback and a lot of juniors on the field with some sophomores. They’re all quite fast, a lot of speed, and I don't make it easy on them by throwing a lot of different variations at them. But they're smart, too. We can really mix things up.”
The Bulldogs are now 4-4 overall and will be back at Joe Debely Stadium on Monday at 7 p.m. for their second CCAL contest against Downey High of Modesto, who are 1-4 on the season after dropping their conference opener to Pitman High by a 20-7 score on Wednesday.
The crosstown rivals Bulldogs and Pride will meet next Wednesday at Pitman High School.
