Lions extend winning streak in Battle of 506

LA FERIA — The streak continues.

La Feria extended its streak to 17 straight wins over Santa Rosa as the Lions defeated the Warriors 10-6 in the annual Battle of 506 at Lion Stadium.

"It wasn’t pretty, but we will take it," La Feria coach Elifonso Esquivel said. "Santa Rosa played one heck of a game, and I have to take my hat off to coach Joshua Gonzalez and his staff. Whenever two teams play in a rivalry game, both teams will give it their all and want to get the win. Fortunately for us, we won the game."

Santa Rosa (2-2) drew first blood as running back Joshua Watrous scored on a 50-yard touchdown run on the second play of the opening drive, giving the Warriors a 6-0 lead with 11:00 left in the first quarter. Watrous led the Warriors in rushing as he ran for 85 yards on 12 carries.

La Feria (1-2) cut the lead in half as Brian Vasquez nailed a 30-yard field goal with 5:32 left in the second quarter.

The Lions took their first lead of the game 10-6 as quarterback Justin Rodriguez connected with Jose Martinez on a 51-yard touchdown strike with 9:07 left in the third quarter.

Santa Rosa’s defense came up with a huge stop with just a little over five minutes to play in the fourth quarter as it held La Feria out of the end zone with the ball at the 1-yard line.

Then the Warriors started driving the ball down field with the ball at their own 40-yard line with over three and a half minutes to play. But the Lions defense made a big stop on fourth down.

Santa Rosa tried to pull off some trickery as time expired. Aaron Ramirez ran a reverse and turned the corner at the 20-yard line and had a clear sideline. But La Feria’s defense tripped him up at the 50.

Going into halftime, La Feria had only accumulated 60 yards of offense and was plagued by fumbles and penalties. However, the Lions’ offense came alive in the second half as they racked up 159 yards for a total of 219 on the night.

"I told the kids at halftime that they needed to relax and regroup," Esquivel said. "We were very inconsistent in the first half and turnovers were hurting us. However, we made the necessary adjustments and our offense started to come around."

Santa Rosa coach Joshua Gonzalez felt his team had a number of chances to win the game but just failed to capitalize.

"We could have easily been up 14-0 but did not execute or take advantage of the numerous opportunities we had," Gonzalez said. "This one definitely hurts bad because we had our opportunities to win this game. But we have to regroup and have one more non-district game to go. We have to learn from this one and move forward."