Football Recap: Portola's Luck Takes a Turn for the Worse on Saturday

Bulldogs

Previous 5 Games

12/14/24 vs Arcata	21-27
12/06/24 @ King/Drew	35-34
11/29/24 vs El Rancho	31-14
11/22/24 vs Baldwin Park	30-14
11/15/24 @ Santa Paula	14-10

It's hard to turn regular season success into postseason wins, a fact Portola can now relate to. They fell to the Arcata Tigers 27-21. The Bulldogs' defeat signaled the end of their five-game winning streak.

Despite the loss, Portola still got an impressive performance from Diego Reyna, who rushed for 127 yards and two touchdowns while picking up 7.1 yards per carry. Portola also got a significant boost from Timothy Grettenberg, who ran away from the competition to the tune of 82 yards.

Reyna was just one part of a punishing run game: Portola was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 208 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 163 rushing yards in five consecutive contests.

Luke Lemke was his usual excellent self, rushing for 118 yards and three touchdowns on only 15 carries, while also throwing for 150 yards on eight of 17 attempts for Arcata. Lemke has been hot recently, having posted two or more rushing touchdowns the last four times he's played. Another player making a difference was Tony Buchanan, who rushed for 96 yards and one touchdown.

Portola's loss ended a five-game streak of wins at home and dropped them to 9-7. As for Arcata, the win (which was their fifth in a row) raised their record to 14-1.

As of now, neither Portola nor Arcata have any future games scheduled.