Merced waltzed into their contest on Friday with three straight wins... but they left with four. Everything went their way against the El Capitan Gauchos as they made off with a 54-32 win. The match was pretty much decided by the half, when the score had already reached 42-6.
Merced's success was the result of a balanced attack that saw several players step up, but Vicente Cortez led the charge by rushing for 37 yards and two touchdowns, while also throwing for 157 yards and two touchdowns while completing 73.7% of his passes. Cortez has become a key player for Merced: the team is 4-1 when he posts at least two rushing touchdowns, but 1-2 otherwise. Another rusher making a difference was Adarias Morales-Saetern, who rushed for 128 yards and two touchdowns.
Merced was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 310 rushing yards. They easily outclassed their opponents in that department as El Capitan only rushed for 108.
Although El Capitan took the loss, they still got scores from Lorenzo Peters, Braddik Williams, Anthony Jones, and Dejuan Franklin.
Merced pushed their record up to 5-3 with the victory, which was their third straight at home. As for El Capitan, their loss ended a three-game streak of away wins and brought them to 4-4.
Merced has already played their next matchup, a 27-24 win against Atwater on the 25th. As for El Capitan, they also didn't take long to hit the field again: they've already played their next game, a 42-2 victory against Buhach Colony on the 25th.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
