By MICHAEL JOHNSON

Bulletin correspondent

ESCALON — Escalon has had its share of struggles, in large part due to injuries, heading into its Trans-Valley League game on Friday.

“Escalon is still Escalon,” Ripon Christian head coach Phil Grams said after his team suffered a 43-20 loss at the hands of reigning four-time Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV champion Cougars (2-2 TVL, 3-5 overall) Friday night in front of a packed homecoming crowd at Engel Field.

Grams’ Knights (1-3, 4-4) came into tonight’s match-up with the perennial power coming off of its first win in school history vs. across-the-street rival Ripon.

“We came off of a very high, emotionally charged week last week, and we had to do that again this week.”

The reality of playing the vaunted TVL power set in almost immediately for Grams and the Knights, as Escalon’s Ben Gonzalez evaded tackles taking the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown after just 11 seconds of game time.

On its’ ensuing possession, Ripon Christian answered back with a sustained drive led by strong play up front from its offensive line, opening holes for the teams leading rusher junior Lushen Sanders. The drive came to a screeching halt as Sanders fumbled just inside the 10-yard line, giving the ball back to the Cougars and squandering an opportunity to steal momentum back from Escalon.

“When they score that first touchdown, that deflated us a bit. We talked all week about weathering the storm, and we had a good drive coming back, but we’ve got to score right there,” said Grams.

The storm on Friday night for the Knights kept coming in the form of senior do-it-all standout for the Cougars, Carson Medina. Medina scored twice in the second quarter, first on the ground from one yard out and later on a five-yard pass from junior quarterback Logan Huebner to put Escalon up 23-0 with 1:32 left in the second quarter.

Grams’ Knights showed some resilience however, as quarterback Mason Tameling connected on 2 timely throws for chunk yardage to his favorite target, Amos Cady, to put Ripon Christian in position to score before the break. With two seconds left on the clock and from the 2-yard line, Sanders took a quick handoff from Tameling and went into the end zone putting the Knights on the board going into halftime.

Escalon put any question of a comeback in the first two possession after the break. After stopping Ripon Christian on a three-and-out to start the third quarter, Medina hit a hole breaking for 20 of his team high 90 yards on the night. Two plays later, Escalon head coach Andrew Beam dialed up a play action pass and Huebner found tight end Ryan Lewis behind the Ripon Christian secondary for a 50-yard touchdown pass for his second of three touchdown passes on the night.

Much of the success Escalon found on the ground on Friday night can be credited to freshman RB Carter Yates, who was called up from JV this week to help the injury-ravaged Cougars. Yates was the lightning to Medina’s thunder, finding success on the outside to the tune of 55 yards on nine carries, while also catching Huebner’s third touchdown pass of the night, this time from 8 yards out to seal the game early in the fourth quarter.

Ripon Christian was led in large part by Cady, who tallied 112 of the teams 274 yards of total offense on the night. Despite the loss, Grams knows his team was up for the task on Friday night, save for a few errors that prove extra costly when playing a team like Escalon.

“We’ll compete with anybody. Tonight is not a representation of Ripon Christian football,” he said. “It got out of hand early; you can't make those mistakes against a football team that’s that good. We’ll get better, we’ll fix the mistakes we made tonight and seeing good competition as they say, iron sharpens iron.”

Up next for Ripon Christian is a road tilt at Orestimba (2-3, 5-3), while Escalon looks to pick up that key fourth victory on the season at Ripon (1-3, 3-5).