GARDEN GROVE — The Rancho Alamitos football team entered Thursday’s Garden Grove League opener as the four-time defending league champions.

The Vaqueros took a giant step toward extending that streak this season with a 17-7 victory over Los Amigos at Bolsa Grande High School.

Angel Diaz ran for 106 yards and a touchdown and also made a 34-yard field goal for the Vaqueros, and quarterback Chris Hurley threw for 176 yards and a touchdown.

Rancho Alamitos coach Mike Enright expected a closely contested battle but was pleased with the result after a tough week of practice.

“Our kids are resilient,” he said. “We have a standard we’re trying to stick to and we knew the winner tonight would be in first place, and we knew Los (Amigos) would be tough, they’re tough every year, it’s always a royal battle every time.”

Rancho Alamitos’ Angel Diaz ran for 106 yards, a TD and kicked a 34-yard FG in the Vaqueros 17-7 win over Los Amigos. Diaz shows love to the defense for their performance as well. @ocvarsity @ggusdathletics pic.twitter.com/NBBqfKVZ7B

— David Delgado (@DavidDelgado_OC) September 30, 2022

The Vaqueros led 10-7 at halftime after Diaz’s field goal with 11 seconds remaining, and after a scoreless third quarter they were able to put together a fourth-quarter scoring drive to make it a two-possession game.

The Rancho Alamitos offensive line started to wear down the Lobos and Diaz gained large chunks of yardage. The senior running back got an 11-yard run, a 26-yard catch and a 16-yard run before scoring on a 6-yard run to make it 17-7 with 8:11 left in the game.

“Our line took over at the end of the game on the last drive,” Enright said, “and our defense has been phenomenal all year. Except for one half last week, they’ve been great.”

“They went heavy-set on us, something we hadn’t seen on film and that was a great adjustment by them,” Los Amigos coach Romel Guess said. “We looked gassed and they wore us down in the end.”

The defense for the Vaqueros (6-0, 1-0) never let Los Amigos quarterback Maysen Navarro get comfortable in the pocket, making it difficult for him to find his receivers downfield.

Guess said that overall he was proud of his team’s effort, but he knows the play on the field was unsatisfactory and riddled with mistakes.

“Our defense kept us in the game, aside of the first play of the game,” Guess said, “but there were so many self-inflicted wounds — the dropped balls, the critical missed blocks on fourth down. This group is capable, I think highly of this group, we’re going to wish we had some of these plays back but all we can do is learn from it.”

One of the plays that Guess referred to was a pass in the flat from Hurley to Chris Acosta, who was able to break a few tackles down the sideline for a 76-yard touchdown.

The Lobos (4-2, 0-1) took advantage of a roughing the kicker penalty on Erubey Ramirez’s 42-yard field goal attempt in the second quarter and tied the score three plays later when Navarro hit Ramirez with a 6-yard TD pass with 4:21 left in the half.

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On the last drive before halftime, the Lobos forced a punt. There was a high snap on the play and a scramble for the ball. Los Amigos was called for roughing the kicker after drilling the punter once he finally got his foot to the ball.

That penalty led to the Diaz field goal that gave Rancho some momentum it never relinquished.

Next week, Los Amigos will look to rebound against Loara while the Vaqueros face Bolsa Grande.