NATHANIEL MATA | THE MONITOR
ELSA — The Edcouch-Elsa Yellow Jackets escaped by the skin of their teeth, defeating the La Joya Juarez-Lincoln Huskies in a 14-13 thriller decided during the last minute of play on Friday in the Monitor’s Game of the Week.
Trailing 14-7, Juarez-Lincoln (3-1) completed an improbable 80-yard drive, by far their best offense sequence the entire game. The drive was capped off with Huskies quarterback Efren Martinez sneaking the ball in from the 1-yard line to pull the visitors within one.
An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty moved the PAT half the distance to the goal. From that point, Juarez-Lincoln decided to go for the two-point conversion and the win.
Safety and all-around team leader Elias Gutierrez received the pitch in the backfield. The ball was knocked loose on the play, and Juarez-Lincoln’s Joseph Valdez picked up the fumble and ran the ball across the goal line. The Huskies erupted, thinking they had won the game, except they hadn’t.
Since the fumble was recovered by a player other than the ball carrier, the play was automatically whistled dead.
Both coaches had different interpretations of what they saw on the play. And vastly different feelings about the call made.
“Everybody in the stadium knows, including yourself, that that was a (conversion),” Juarez-Lincoln coach Tommy Garcia said after the final whistle. “And it’s ridiculous for the officials to decide the game. It shouldn’t be decided by the officials. It should be decided by the players.”
According to the rulebook, the referees appear to have made the right call in the end.
The 2016-17 NCAA football rules and interpretations state under Rule 8, Section 3, Article 3, Item d., sub-item 5: “The try ends when: … Before a change of team possession, a Team A player fumbles and the ball is caught or recovered by any Team A player other than the fumbler. There is no Team A score.”
The National Federation of State High School Associations lists as an exception to the NCAA rules under the “Try” section: “Ball remains alive on fumble if Team A recovers,” which would mean Juarez-Lincoln’s attempt should have been allowed to continue under NFHS rules.
However, the UIL offers its own list of exceptions different from the NFHS exceptions. The 2017 UIL exceptions to NCAA football rules for 2017-18 on the UIL website do not list any exceptions under 8-3-3-d-5. Therefore, the officials at Friday’s game would have been making the call under the NCAA rules, meaning the officials would have been correct to blow the Juarez-Lincoln conversion attempt dead following the fumble.
Edcouch-Elsa (2-1) coach Joe Marichalar was pleased that his team forced the ball loose, but also admitted the Yellow Jackets were a bit lucky.
“They gave it to their best player, rightfully so,” Marichalar said. “Their second guy tried to push it in the end zone and recover, and the ref saw that you can’t do that. We’re just blessed and fortunate it went that way.”
Both teams entered the game averaging more than 29.5 points, but it was clear quickly that both defenses weren’t giving up that many points on Friday.
Edcouch-Elsa’s Jorge Gomez was again the primary source of offense and playmaking. He scored the first half’s only points with a 5-yard rush in the first quarter. His second score was a 51-yard rush in the third quarter on which he found an edge and made the Huskies pay.
“It just starts off with the O-line. If it wasn’t for the O-line, I wouldn’t be anything,” Gomez said after the win.
He rushed for 140 yards in the win and even battled injury in the second half. He was slow to get off the turf on separate occasions but never stayed off the field for very long.
“Little bit banged up, but it was an alright game,” Gomez said. “They’re a tough team. We just wanted it more than they did, so we came out with the win.”
The Huskies scored their points all in the second half. First via a long, home-run pass corralled by Harley Vargas for the 48-yard score. The late drive was manufactured by clutch playmaking from Efren Martinez and his brother Albert Martinez. Albert accounted for 76 receiving yards on the 80-yard drive, setting up the try.
“We made some adjustments, but our kids came ready to play,” Garcia. “In the second half, we turned it up a notch. I think early on, playing against Edcouch-Elsa, I think some of them were a little nervous, but they played a great game.”
Edcouch-Elsa will use what it learned in a 2-1 non-district campaign as the team opens District 32-5A play on the road against Donna North next week.
“Juarez, they were undefeated for a reason, and I think you saw that,” Marichalar said. “It’s a very, very tough team. They have great players, they have great coaches, and it could have gone either way.”