U.S. Army Sergeant first class Michael A. O' Bryan performs the coin toss before the Tokay-Downey game in Lodi Friday Sept.8, 2017. (Bea Ahbeck/News-Sentinel)
Diego Ramirez hustled onto the field at Grape Bowl with hopes of booting a field goal for his Tokay High football team.
The senior kicker did his job. But the visiting Downey Knights were hitting full stride against the Tigers on Friday night, posting a 61-25 win.
Tokay outside linebacker Luke Millan recovered a punt return fumble at the Knights’ 29 yards line midway through the second quarter. But the Tigers’ offense moved the ball to the 20-yard line in four tries. That’s when Ramirez and the field goal unit came onto the field, as he calmly booted a 37-yard field that helped Tokay (1-2) cut Downey’s lead to 16-9 with 2:33 left in the quarter.
But Downey (3-0), which had been averaging 66 points but giving up 50.5 points, rattled off three touchdowns in the final minutes of the quarter that led to a 40-9 halftime lead. Two of those scores were courtesy of Tokay, which lost the ball twice that led to the Knights’ scores. Two of those scores came off the arm of Knights quarterback Bryce Peterson, who threw touchdown passes of 58 and 13 yards to Jairol Harris-Red and Javon Gamez respectively.
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