Turlock High’s football squad came away with a thrilling victory over Central California Conference foe Buhach Colony on Friday night in the Bulldogs' first league victory to keep their postseason hopes alive.

The visiting ‘Dogs were able to play up to their potential and, arguably the best game of the season, as they dominated the Thunder in a 49-28 showdown.

“We played as a team. Our practice preparation didn’t do anything different, but our guys had had enough and wanted to win and they played well,” Turlock head coach James Peterson said.

Coming off a tough loss to Atwater in which the Bulldogs struggled to produce much of anything, they were on point in a night where the offense racked up an astronomical number of over 400 yards on the ground and committed no penalties.

“We were on tonight; it was that type of night where they executed and I was really happy about how we won,” Peterson said.

With a tight game at 15-16 nearing the end of the first half, the Bulldogs’ Sean Downs completed a four yard touchdown pass to Bubba Moreno to put them up 22-15 going into halftime.

On the second possession of the third, Turlock scored on an 80-yard pass from Downs to Hogan and that made it 30-15.

Turlock then scored two more times to extend the lead to 42-23 just before Buhach added another score. Turlock closed out the game with a 14 yard pass touchdown toss from Downs to Jacob Mabie with 3:42 left in the game. Buhach’s final score came in the closing minutes of the game.

“We stayed with our game plan, and we knew what we had to do,” Peterson said.

Downs finished with 252 rushing yards and tallied four passing touchdowns and two rushing and included 160 yards passing. Hogan had one rushing touchdown and a receiving touchdown along with 168 yards on the ground.

Turlock must now defeat CCC and cross-town rival Pitman High to keep its postseason hopes alive in the annual Harvest Bowl at 7 p.m. next Friday.

“It’s going to be a crazy game; the Harvest Bowl will be all about the small things and playing on point,” Peterson said. “The preparation and everything is much more important, especially considering the importance of the game. We will come out and play as hard and tough as we can.”