Rivalries are the best part of sports. The history, the emotions, the countless amounts of close matches. Ripon has seen all of this with their biggest rival, Escalon high school. On Oct. 25, 2024, the Escalon football team came to Ripon looking to steal a win. Despite a well put up fight by Ripon, Escalon did come out with the win with a score of 23-14.
After many weeks of uncertainty and drama coming from the RHS football team, many didn’t know what to expect. However, with a surprising upset against Sonora the student body believed there was still a chance the team could make the playoffs. It seemed like the momentum against Sonora had carried over to the start of the game as the offense had an amazing touchdown on their opening drive. Meanwhile on the defensive side of the ball, RHS was very strong through the ground in the first two quarters. However, the defense struggled against Escalons passing attack, giving up two touchdowns in the first half. Meanwhile for the offense, RHS found much success through the ground game as the team rushed through the Escalon defense and found a way to score in the second quarter tying the game 14-14.
Much excitement was going through the RHS student body as they believed they could win this rival game. However the RHS offense and defense did make adjustments at halftime, while Escalon made several. This resulted in the RHS offensive line not being able to sustain any blocks, stopping both the pass and running game leading to a zero points in the second half. On top of that, there were several penalties halting many big plays for RHS. On the defensive side, the defensive fared better than the offense getting several punts. Similar to the offense, penalties stopped what could’ve been a shutout performance by RHS. Many of these penalties on the defensive side of the ball caused controversy by the RHS fans and student body. The defense allowed nine points in the second half. The offense got one final chance to win the game, but the offensive line gave up several blocks stopping a RHS comeback ending the game at 14-23.
Interim head coach, Cole Williams, stated when asked about what the team needed to improve on, “Execution. Too many penalties, wrong assignments. We gotta clean that stuff up, we gotta make some plays and we will be just fine”.
Though the team has played better in the past two weeks, the RHS football team have had the same problems they have had at the beginning of the season. With the final game of the season coming up, RHS needs to clean up their mistakes to end the season on a high note.
