ANAHEIM – The smallest player on the field had the biggest game.
Rancho Alamitos senior running back Jesus Diego, who is 5-foot-3 and weighs 140 pounds, rushed for 262 yards and four touchdowns on 35 carries in the Vaqueros’ 33-19 win over Savanna in a nonleague football game Thursday at Glover Stadium.
Diego scored the game’s first points on a 5-yard run in the first quarter and scored the final three touchdowns of the game on runs of 16, 2 and 49 yards.
Rancho Alamitos improved to 2-1. Savanna is 0-4.
Rancho Alamitos historically has a superb running game with running backs who have often led Orange County in rushing since the 1980s. Vaqueros coach Mike Enright has been around for much of that in his 24 seasons running the Rancho Alamitos program.
He said the offense made a return to its traditional style of dominating the line of scrimmage and piling up first downs and points via the running game.
“We changed a lot of things this week and went back to what we do best,” he said. “I thought we did it tonight pretty well. That was basically our game plan.”
When told he had 262 yards, Diego smiled and replied: “Is that with penalties or without?”
Penalties negated or reduced a couple of long runs that otherwise would have pushed him close to or beyond 300 yards.
“We’re always believing in ourselves and believing in our coaching staff,” Diego said. “I believe in the line … We executed every play.”
Rancho Alamitos offensive linemen Jesus Chavez, Anthony Contreras, Carson Labossiere, Jacob Luna, Roberto Miranda and Matthew Zepeda and tight end Nathan Encizo provided plenty of openings for Diego, who added plenty of yards on second efforts.
An interception by Rancho’s Carlos Herrera set up the first touchdown, Diego’s 5-yard run with 3 minutes left in the first quarter. Savanna tied it on Isaac Real’s hard-fought, 4-yard touchdown run in the second quarter.
Rancho Alamitos regained the lead on Cruz Gonzalez’s 1-yard…
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