[ HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL ]
Pac-Five rallies
to 27-22 win
Pac-Five is getting inspiration from high places.
The Wolfpack improved to 2-0 last night with a 27-22 come-from-behind nonleague football victory over Schurr High School of Southern California at Kaiser Stadium.
"I was praying, praying, just kept praying," Pac-Five 250-pound running back Gyles Lawrence said about the moment before fighting his way for the go-ahead 13-yard TD run with 35 seconds to go. "It's all God, honestly. We had to do it, had to get to 2-0, and we did it."
It wasn't such a heavenly experience for the Spartans and coach Mike Mayoral, whose team flew in this week from Montebello, in the East Los Angeles area.
"It's always tough to lose a game like this," he said. "It's unfortunate because the kids played so hard."
The game had four lead changes. Schurr wiped out an 8-0 deficit and took a 16-8 halftime lead, but Pac-Five scored twice in the third quarter -- on TD runs of 1 and 7 yards by Shane Lawrence -- to go ahead 21-16 with 12 minutes left.
But the Spartans didn't give up. Andrew Trujillo's interception and long return set up Jesse Ramirez's 38-yard touchdown catch from Marquez Acuna for a 22-21 edge with 5:50 to go.
The hard running of Gyles Lawrence along with the passing of Jordan Tani moved the chains to the Spartans' 13. That's where Gyles Lawrence got the call, prayed, bounced off a few tacklers and scored the winning TD.
Schurr got as far as the Pac-Five 37, but couldn't pull off the late comeback.
"At the half, we didn't get on the kids, because they were playing mistake-free football and our morale is so high that we knew we could come back," Wolfpack coach Joe Onosai said.
Ramirez finished with a game-high 142 yards rushing and two TDs, while Gyles Lawrence also broke the 100-yard barrier with 108.
"By coming to play here, we did something nobody from our area has ever done," Mayoral said. "Teams from Orange County do it all the time, but not teams from East Los Angeles. This is very special."
