Escalon football seniors capture section title after winning just one game as freshmen
STOCKTON – One might not call Escalon’s seniors a rags-to-riches story, but it would have been hard to prognosticate this class, mired in depths of defeat four years ago, reaching the pinnacle of a Sac-Joaquin Section championship.
With a record of just 1-9 as freshmen, the class of 2022 began battling back in their sophomore campaign only to have COVID-19 curtail their junior year into a brief three-game spring “season” where they finished 2-1.
The young Cougars, with six sophomores and a freshman playing varsity, opened this year winning their first three games out of the gate only to be brought back down to Earth with a crushing 54-14 loss to Kimball Sep. 10 on homecoming.
“With so many young stars and so much inexperience we thought we were still a year or two years away (from reaching a section title),” Escalon coach Andrew Beam said Saturday after his squad had just dispatched Hilmar 20-13 for the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division V championship at St. Mary’s High School. “I thought that this team had to grow up a lot.
“We got smacked by Kimball at homecoming,” Beam added. “From the second half of the Hughson game the next week, where we were trailing (13-0) at halftime, this team has turned it around. It was a wakeup call. These guys needed some adversity. This team answered the challenge that every one of us coaches gave them from there on out.”
The Cougars rallied to beat the Huskies 21-13, have won nine-straight contests and earned the school’s 10th blue section championship football banner, the second for Beam, who now is 2-0 in section finals, both against Hilmar.
Escalon previously was 3-1 against Hilmar in section championship games with former Cougars head coach Mark Loureiro winning by a score of 21-20 in 2003 and 23-0 in 2005, while Yellowjackets coach Frank Marques edged Escalon 20-17 in 2011.
Escalon improved to 10-6 in section championship games Saturday while Hilmar is now 8-8.
Repeating history (hopefully)
Saturday’s tilt was a rematch of the 2019 Division VI championship between the Cougars and Yellowjackets where Escalon downed Hilmar 41-27 for the crown in a game played at Lincoln High School.
Escalon’s storybook season continued as the Cougars downed Chico-Pleasant Valley 41-17 on the road in the NorCal playoff and then whipped the La Jolla Vikings 52-21 for the CIF Division 4-A State Bowl Championship at Engel Field on Dec. 14 to finish the season 14-1 overall.
This year’s season isn’t over for the Cougars just yet and they hope to keep winning until the curtail falls.
Leading the way
There was quite the commotion as the Escalon football team rolled out of the school with cars honking and police cruisers and fire trucks briefly escorting the school busses down Escalon-Bellota Road.
As is practically tradition in Escalon each November during playoffs, there were posters lining the school fences and balloons adorning ranches and dairies along Mariposa Road along with purple and gold aluminum foil-wrapped telephone poles to let the players know of the town’s support for their team.
Comeback player of the season
Escalon running back JP Lial has probably come the furthest of all the Cougars seniors.
Lial was about eight games into his sophomore season when he suffered a catastrophic knee injury that abruptly ended his year.
“(The injury) tore me to pieces,” Lial said. “I was down in the dumps for a while. Once I had my surgery, I knew it was time to get back to work to be able to play the following year.”
Lial worked his way back for the next year and had a cautious six carries for 26 yards in the spring season and returned full throttle this year. On Friday against Hilmar, Lial had his 80th carry of the season, a meaningful three-yard touchdown with the game still on the line, for 402 yards.
“It’s been a great experience and I wouldn’t have asked for anything else,” said Lial, who was caught a little off-guard when Beam called his number. “Coach said, ‘JP, you’re in.’ I knew I was going to make it because I believe in my line and that we were going to be able to push it through. It was awesome being able to help our team to get us the win.”
Beam said “JP’s gone through a lot of ups and downs with his knee surgery and getting that thing reconstructed. He’s our senior we trust, and he’s done everything for us. We knew we needed to get the ball to him there to punch it in.”
Party on, dudes
Several dozen purple-clad partiers had the tailgate of tailgates going along an entire row in the St. Mary’s parking lot with food and music and kids tossing mini footballs.
Ed and Sharon Fang of Valley Springs invited me and several other passersby to stop and eat some of their delicious pasta dinner with them before they went into the stadium watch Escalon, where their grandson attends, battle for a championship.
The Fangs, who’ve retired from working in the Manteca School District, have an interest in Manteca High and were also at the game Friday night at St. Mary’s where the Buffaloes defeated Oakdale for the Division III championship.
They didn’t say if they tailgated before that game as well, but they sure did it right.
Like brother, like brother
Steve Anderson of Oakdale enthusiastically worked his way into the packed Escalon stands with several family members to watch his grandson, junior Logan Anderson, play in the title tilt.
“We’re hoping Logan gets a section championship to go along with his brother’s,” he said, speaking of Logan’s older brother, Luke Anderson, who had 25 carries for 119 yards and two touchdowns in the 2019 section championship as a junior against Hilmar.
Smiling as he left the stadium Steve Anderson could rightly say – mission accomplished.
This article originally appeared on The Record: High school football Escalon seniors capture Sac-Joaquin Section title
