LA HABRA – Sonora’s Anthony Abad had a career night, rushing for 227 yards and two long touchdowns, as the Raiders defeated Fullerton 43-36 on Friday to remain undefeated in the Freeway League.
While Abad was slicing up Fullerton’s defense with touchdown runs of 60 yards in the second quarter and 62 yards on the third, the Indians’ Deshawn Cobbs was pounding away at Sonora (7-1, 3-0).
Cobbs ran for 174 yards, and his second-quarter scoring runs of 3, 5 and 2 yards helped give Fullerton (2-6, 0-3) a 28-21 halftime lead.
“He was a thousand-yard rusher last year a junior,” Sonora coach Kevin Oberlander said of Cobbs. “We did not play well on defense tonight. We did not tackle very well. But like I said, I’m glad that they stuck with it and got that stop at the very end.”
Abad’s 62-yard run, on the second play of the third quarter, tied the game at 28-28. That didn’t last long as Fullerton’s Fernando Padron, who played as the Wildcat quarterback for nearly half of Fullerton’s snaps, scored on a 19-yard run 3 minutes later.
Padron ran for 157 yards, and Sonora’s best defense was to keep the ball out of his hands. The Raiders did that by taking the kickoff and grinding out a 14-play, 73-yard drive which ended on Nicholas Fernandez’s 15-yard touchdown run.
Olin Morales, who had a key block on Abad’s second TD, set up the score with a 24-yard run to the Fullerton 3 on second-and-16.
The Raiders forced a punt on the first play of the fourth quarter and chewed up five minutes of the clock before Martin found TylerRobertson in the right corner of the end zone with 6:48 left in the fourth quarter. An 11-yard pass to Morales on fourth-and-6 from the Fullerton 25 kept the drive alive.
Oberlander said the previous three games against Fullerton have been Sonora victories and all decided in the final seconds. This was no exception, as the Indians moved from their 20 to the Sonora 24. Padron had two crucial pickups on the drive, a 22-yard run on fourth-and-1 to the Sonora 49, and an 11-yard run on fourth-and-1 to the Sonora 30.
But three plays later, Cobbs was separated from the ball after a 6-yard pickup, and Isaiah Porch fell on the fumble at the 18 with 53 seconds left in the game.
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