Mustang senior runs for 5 TDs in place of injured Henderson
| Saturday, Oct 24 2009 12:13 AM
Last Updated Saturday, Oct 24 2009 12:13 AM
For one night, senior Eddie Gutierrez made the absence of Stockdale's outstanding running back Malik Henderson an afterthought.
Gutierrez set a Stockdale school record with five touchdowns while more than doubling his seasonal rushing totals with 177 yards on 24 carries to power the Mustangs to a 41-7 Southwest Yosemite League win at Ridgeview.
The Mustangs (6-1 overall, 3-0 SWYL) broke open a 14-7 halftime lead with four Gutierrez touchdowns in the second half.
"This is my chance," said Gutierrez, who had 151 rushing yards all season prior to Friday night. "You never go in thinking about doing that (scoring five TDs). But after the first one, it gave me motivation to get more. I just wanted to run hard."
Gutierrez ran straight at the Ridgeview defense and often dragged tacklers for extra yardage. He broke the previous school record of four TDs set by Francis Ojukwu in the 2004 season against South.
"Eddie did a good job stepping in and filling Malik's shoes," said Stockdale coach Mike Snow. Henderson suffered a knee injury one week earlier but is expected back before the end of the season.
"They're going to have a tough decision to make on who's going to be their guy," said Ridgeview coach Dennis Manning, whose Wolf Pack fell to 5-3 overall and 1-3 in the SWYL.
Stockdale had a 14-0 lead when Ridgeview scored with 18 seconds left in the half on quarterback Tyler Dogins' 16-yard run on a fourth-and-1 play.
But any momentum that score gave Ridgeview quickly evaporated in the third quarter.
Stockdale received the kickoff and drove 74 yards on five plays, capped by Gutierrez's 25-yard TD run.
The Mustangs then recovered an onside kick and drove 41 yards on four plays for another TD, this one on a 4-yard run by Gutierrez.
That made it 28-7 with less than four minutes gone in the third quarter.
"We wanted to keep the pressure on them," Snow said. "We tried the onside kick after we had taken some of the momentum back. If it wouldn't have worked, people would have been asking me some hard questions."
Snow said maintaining possession accomplished the Mustangs' top goal: keeping the ball away from Ridgeview quarterback Dogins.
"He's a real weapon," Snow said.
Stockdale seemed to run at will on the Wolf Pack in the second half. The Mustangs had 165 rushing yards in the third quarter and 205 in the second half.
Ridgeview was held to 39 net rushing yards and four first downs in the second half.
In the fourth quarter, Ridgeview had 15 net yards and zero first downs on three possessions.
"We felt good about how we played in the first half," Manning said. "Our kids played hard and good. But you've got to play four quarters. We couldn't sustain anything in the second half."
Ridgeview started the season 5-1 but has now lost two straight. The Wolf Pack dropped a 27-7 game to Frontier a week earlier.
"The bottom line: in playing two good teams the last two weeks, it's going to make us a better football team," Manning said.
Dogins led the Wolf Pack with 104 yards on 22 carries. Much of that yardage came on passing downs when he scrambled to avoid the hard-rushing defense.
