Football season opened up against the South Gate Rams at Goodman Memorial Stadium on Friday, August 22. 

At the beginning of the game, an interception made by Jakob Galvan for La Mirada on the Rams’ first offensive drive of the game stopped the momentum. South Gate managed to get the ball back to put up the first points of the game with a reception made by one of their receivers. The Rams went for two instead of settling for a field goal to put them up 8-0. 

However, the Matadores drove down the field and responded when they put in Ryan Gonzalez, who is usually a defensive end, to run a play out of the wildcat formation in the first quarter of the game where he scored the first touchdown of the season and game with a score of 8-7. After many drives, the Matadores were still unable to take the lead in the first half. Head Coach, Lucas Mealy admitted, “The first half, I was not happy. We had a couple mistakes and an interception off of a bad read. We lost our assignments. Overall, the first half was frustrating. We had to make adjustments during halftime.” With five minutes in the third quarter, La Mirada took the lead with a touchdown and extra point for a score of 14-8.

Gonzalez’ rushing touchdown was just the first of four rushing touchdowns of the night. Ismael Garcia had two of the four touchdowns and Josiah Fregoso had a rushing touchdown as well. Garcia explained, “I felt good to come back and score two touchdowns since I was out the whole season last year due to an injury.” Garcia had 237 yards rushing, but when he found out, he commented, “I was surprised. I wasn’t even thinking about the yards. I was just focused on winning.” 

The biggest gain of yardage on the ground was Garcia’s 55-yard run where he was stopped at the Rams’ five-yard line. Even though he was stopped, it was a run that got much of the home side bleachers on their feet and it also set the team up for Fregoso’s rushing touchdown. There was also a passing touchdown made by Cuevas where he connected with Kaiden Wardlow on a fade ball. Levi Reyes also had a game-sealing interception with less than two minutes left in the game. The Matadores came out on top for the victory with the ending score being 34-16. Mealy added, “In the second half, I liked how we turned it around and kept our heads up.”

Varsity Football plays again on Thursday, August 28 at 7:00pm at Goodman Memorial Stadium versus the Troy Trojans.