Mattos, Gridley hold off Marysville in nail-biter
After a first half in which both offenses had no problem lighting up the scoreboard, Friday night's game between Gridley High and Marysville came down to one play at the end.
With 2.6 seconds remaining and Gridley clinging to a four-point lead, the Bulldogs defense came up huge, stuffing Marysville's Cole Hannum at the 2-yard line as time expired to squeak out an exciting 30-26 victory at War Memorial Stadium.
It was a wild game all the way through as the teams raced up and down the field in the first half only to engage in a defensive battle of attrition in the second. However, when the dust cleared it was the Bulldogs who came out on top, picking up their first win of the season and doing it in exciting fashion.
"It doesn't get any better than that," an ecstatic Gridley coach John Cooprider said. "I'm so proud of my team. They've dealt with a lot of adversity these first three weeks, so this is a great night."
It was a game of big plays, and no player was bigger than Bulldog wideout Kevin Mattos, who scored four highlight reel touchdowns in the first half.
Gridley (1-3) got rolling early when Mattos received a lateral and broke back across the field for a dazzling 67-yard touchdown run on the second play of the game to stake the Bulldogs to a quick 7-0 advantage.
The Indians (1-3) answered back quickly when Hannum scored on a 2-yard touchdown run and followed it up by taking a screen pass from Shaine Pinney and racing 43 yards for another score to put Marysville up 14-7 at the end of the first quarter.
Mattos added to his heroics in the second quarter when he caught a short pass from Brad Props and ran through the teeth of the Indians' defense for a beautiful 44-yard TD to knot the game 14.
But he wasn't done.
Midway through the second period, sophomore Emery Haddy lofted a ball deep to a double-covered Mattos, who out-leaped both defenders for the ball and raced in for a 53-yard score to put Gridley up 20-14.
Marysville answered back on the very next play when Pinney made a play-action fake and found tight end Mac Asurmendi wide open down the middle for a 75-yard TD to tie the score at 20.
The Indians then took the lead when Jake Thome broke loose off right tackle and rumbled his way in for a 45-yard touchdown run. The two-point conversion failed, and Marysville took a 26-20 lead.
Props hooked up with Mattos again just before the half for a 16-yard touchdown to give Gridley a 27-26 lead at the intermission.
It was a dazzling performance by Mattos, who finished the game with five carries for 88 yards and a touchdown and four catches for 121 yards and three scores.
"He's one of our best athletes, so we've got to find a way to get him the ball," Cooprider said. "He's a game-changer when you put the ball in his hands."
Offense dominated the first 24 minutes as the two schools combined for 638 yards and eight touchdowns.
Gridley's Pedro Amezcua kicked a 24-yard field goal to make the score 30-26 at the end of the third period, but Marysville still had a chance to pull it out late.
The Indians took over the ball at their own 20 with 5:18 remaining and used 17 plays to move the ball down to the Bulldogs' 4-yard line. Hannum took a toss with the game on the line, but three Gridley players converged to bring him down 2 yards short of the end zone as time ran out.
