Despite his team suffering its second loss of the season, Hemet football head coach Jeff Reitz said he was proud of his team’s effort last Friday night.
The Bulldogs fell to the Murrieta Mesa Rams 35-12 in a game in which a Mesa running back rushed for more than 100 yards for the first time in the school’s four-year history. Mesa’s Kyler Vasquez ran for 165 yards while Mesa quarterback Chase Chambers passed for 365 yards and five touchdowns.
“They are a prolific passing team and really we only have six guys on this team with varsity experience,” Reitz said. “Our defense never quit tonight. We got after them and physically we were right there with them.”
Reitz said his team did miss a few opportunities on offense, but was pleased with the balance of the team’s passing and running game.
“Last week (at Banning), we didn’t try to be balanced. That is my fault,” Reitz said. “We did a great job of that tonight.”
While the Bulldogs were unable to score in the first half, it did accumulate 13 first downs. Last week, the team was only able to get three first downs the entire second half.
“We saw obvious improvements tonight,” Reitz said.
Down 35-0 with three minutes left in the third quarter, the Bulldogs were able to put points on the board when quarterback Alex Denbaugh threw a 25-yard pass to Sean Ruh.
The Bulldogs scored again when Denbaugh ran the ball into the end zone with just over six minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs were unable to convert the extra points on either score.
“We have a huge choice of receivers this year,” Reitz said, praising kicker and receiver Matt Parker for coming into his own offensively this season. Parker ran for 24 yards on Friday and had 48 receiving yards.
Denbaugh rushed for 49 yards in the game, completing 13 of 30 passes for 142 yards.
“I am very proud of my quarterback tonight,” Reitz said. “He really came of age and did a knockout job.”
Reitz said Denbaugh is not the only one who grew up Friday night. In fact, he said he was going to tell his entire team that he saw them mature.
“This is a great group of kids. Every single kid wants to play for the Hemet Bulldogs,” Reitz said. “It is about having the right kids on the bus – that is what we have now.”
Other standout s for the Bulldogs were Art Cruz who ran for 48 yards and Sean Ruh who ran for 35 yards. Hemet ended the game with 170 rushing yards and 140 passing yards.
The Bulldogs’ next game will be Friday night at 7 p.m. in Indio (0-2).