The Merced High girls flag football team found themselves trailing by two scores at the half against Atwater. The Bears knew they needed to pull out a victory to earn a share of the Central California Conference championship. The question was how bad did they want it?

 

The Bears dug deep as the defense shut out the Falcons in the second half and quarterback Antonia LeJarde engineered two scoring drives as Merced came back to defeat Atwater 20-19 in a thrilling regular-season finale. The Bears and Falcons both earned a share of the CCC championship with 8-2 records. Both teams will open the playoffs at home next week in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II playoffs.

 

“This means everything,” LeJarde said. “We had a great group of seniors and we just wanted to have them leave with a championship.”

 

The Falcons (16-5) came out in the first half and sprinted out to a 19-7 lead. Quarterback Madi Hiler connected on a pair of touchdown passes, finding Kaylee Gunnin for a 6-yard touchdown late in the first quarter and then hooking up with Natalia Melgoza on a 47-yard scoring strike with 9:27 left in the first half. The Falcons third score of the first half came off a highlight reel play as senior Saige Harcksen rushed LeJarde and jumped to deflect a pass, but ended up intercepted the throw and running 48 yards for a touchdown to give the Falcons a 19-7 lead with 3:36 left in the second quarter.

 

The Bears answered right away on their first possession of the second half, marching down field in three plays with LeJarde connecting with Averie Steverson for a 28-yard touchdown pass to cut the lead to 19-14 with 10:58 left in the third quarter. “That was huge,” LeJarde said. “We needed that to get our momentum back and just get our energy back. That got us back in the game.”

 

Meanwhile, the Bears defense kept the Falcons out of the end zone, twice coming up with stops in the red zone. Merced defensive back Leanna Amado came up with a key play as Hiler threw a pass to Melgoza in the end zone. Melgoza almost came down with the touchdown, but Amado was able to knock the ball out of her hands at the last second. 

 

Merced took the ball over at its own 19 yard line and drove down the field for the go-ahead score as LeJarde scored on a 4-yard touchdown run to give the Bears a 20-19 lead with 29 seconds left in the third quarter. “I was looking to pass,” LeJarde said.. “I was scrambling and they had good pressure on me. “(My coaches) always tell me to trust my legs so I just went

with it.”

 

The Falcons were able to drive to the Merced 13-yard line late in the fourth quarter but the Bears defense turned Atwater away one final time with 2:36 remaining. LeJarde was able to scramble for a first down the Bears ran out the clock to seal the victory and earn a season sweep over the Falcons.

 

“I’m super proud,” said Merced coach Vic Nazario. “We've had some adversity recently. We lost some games to some tough teams, but teams that we thought we could beat. This is only going to build character and get us ready for playoffs.”

Girls Volleyball

El Capitan 3, Golden Valley 0 – The Gauchos completed their perfect 10-0 run through the Central California Conference for their fifth consecutive conference championship with a 25-21, 25-8, 25-10 victory over the Cougars. El Capitan went through CCC play without dropping a set.

 

Bette Lua finished with 17 kills, two blocks and four digs and Sophie Fernandez added seven kills, 12 assists and four digs. Jordyn Middleton recorded 11 kills and sophomore Anushka Elwin chipped in with 22 assists and six digs. El Capitan (23-10) will find out who its first-round playoff opponent will be on Friday afternoon when the section releases the playoff brackets.

Shawn Jansen is the MUHSD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org.