Football Roundup: Livingston, Hilmar, Stone Ridge Christian open league play with wins

Caden Bailey found the end zone twice for the second consecutive game to help lead the Hilmar High football team to a 31-21 victory over Ripon Christian in the Trans-Valley League opener for both teams on Friday night.

Bailey scored on runs of 7 and 8 yards against the Knights. Merek Ellerd added two touchdown passes for Hilmar, connecting on a 19-yard pass to John Labno and a 54-yard screen pass to Tanner Westmoreland.

The win was the third consecutive for the Yellowjackets, who improved to 3-1 overall this season.

Livingston 21, Ceres 14 — The Wolves improved to 2-2 on the season and returned to the Western Athletic Conference with a victory over the Bulldogs.

The Wolves defense came up with big turnovers all night with five different players intercepting passes.

Adrian Hernandez led the Livingston offense with 74 rushing yards and a touchdown. Ricardo Partida added a short TD run, and Christian Partida scored on a 7-yard reception.

El Capitan 38, Waterford 6 — Gauchos quarterback Gio Mendoza threw five TD passes as El Capitan improved to 3-1.

Diego Ultreras hauled in two of the touchdowns and also caused two turnovers on defense with an interception and a forced fumble.

Braddik Williams, Anthony Jones and Arthur Villa all caught touchdowns for El Capitan, and Lorenzo Peters added a touchdown on the ground.

Atwater 42, Pitman 10 — The Falcons bounced back from last week’s tough loss to Hilmar with a dominant win to improve to 3-1.

Atwater quarterback duo James Bell and AJ Banks both scored on long touchdown runs. Running back Jeremiah Delarosa added two rushing touchdowns.

Landon Perez added a touchdown pass and brought in an interception on defense for the Falcons.

Madera 48, Merced 35 — The Bears (1-3) hurt themselves with special-teams mistakes and couldn’t take advantage of a couple red-zone opportunities in the second half as the Coyotes won the Governor’s Hat.

Merced jumped out to a 21-6 lead midway through the first half, but a bad snap on a punt set up a Madera touchdown.

The Coyotes added a kickoff return for a score later in the first half.

The Bears led 35-33 in the second half, but twice were stopped in the red zone with opportunities to extend the lead.

Madera made the plays late to come away with the win.

Los Banos 20, Gregori 14 — Tigers senior Ethan Briseno scored two rushing touchdowns to lead Los Banos (1-4) to its first victory over the season.

The Tigers will head into their bye week before opening up Central California Conference play against El Capitan on Oct. 4.

Lodi 28, Buhach Colony 7 — The Thunder turned the ball over twice inside the Flames’ 10-yard line, including a pick-six.

Buhach Colony dropped to 0-5 this season and extended its losing streak to 18, dating back to the 2022 season.

The Thunder got contributions on the ground from Isaiah Reed, Isaiah Alvarez, Jacob Medina and Edgar Hernandez with Hernandez scoring BC’s lone touchdown on his way to surpassing 100 yards rushing on the night.

Lathrop 28, Pacheco 18 — Arturo Anguiano hauled in two touchdown passes, but the Panthers dropped to 2-2 this season and 0-1 in the WAC.

Anguiano hauled in scoring strikes from Aidan Pikas and Brennan Watkins.

Stone Ridge Christian 28, Denair 6 — Marcus Gray tossed four touchdowns as the Knights opened up Southern League play with a victory over the Coyotes.

SRC improved to 3-1 with its third consecutive victory.

Daijon O’Neil finished with 112 yards of total offense, including 77 yards on the ground.

Tight end Vinnie Tome caught four passes for 52 yards and a touchdown. Luke Agueda added four catches for 89 yards and a touchdown.

The Knights defense was led by Carson Lund’s 14 tackles. Mark Andres added 10 tackles and Owen Nelson recorded nine tackles, including two tackles-for-loss.

Delhi 44, Le Grand 13 — Antonio Gutierrez scored four rushing touchdowns to help lead the Hawks to a Southern League win over Le Grand, which was playing its first game of the season after a three-game suspension following an altercation during a preseason scrimmage against Tranquillity.

Gutierrez scored on runs of 16, 10, 21 and 2 yards. Delhi’s Sergio Bueno started the scoring with an 89-yard touchdown run in the first quarter.

Le Grand’s two scores came on TD passes for Diego Martinez to Miguel Moreno of 14 and 31 yards.

Gustine 34, Mariposa 25 — The Reds won their third consecutive game and improved to 3-1 overall and 1-0 in the SL.

Gustine has scored 121 points in the three victories.

The Grizzlies had a shot to win late, trailing 27-25 with 3 minutes left, but fumbled the opportunity away.

Laten Butler scored two touchdowns for Mariposa, breaking free for a 57-yard touchdown run and adding a 10-yard run for a score.

Justin Araque and Hayden Hill added touchdown runs for the Grizzlies (1-4 overall).

Chowchilla 61, Boron 14 — Dwayne Hemphill scored three rushing touchdowns on offense and forced a fumble on defense that led to a scoop and score by teammate Ajejandro Molina.

Hemphill scored on runs of 12, 36 and 1 yards. His forced fumble set up Molina’s 42-yard fumble return for a score.

Rashaun Belaski added another fumble return of 26 yards for a touchdown.

Chowchilla’s Andrew Reardon scored on an 82-yard kickoff return, Mister Mitchell broke free for a 42-yard scoring run and quarterback Davian Stephenson added a touchdown pass and a scoring run.

Kerman 35, Dos Palos 23 — The Broncos scored 20 fourth-quarter points but couldn’t catch the Lions.

Dos Palos quarterback Earl Riley ran for a 2-yard touchdown and threw touchdown passes of 54 yards to Billy Scott and 22 yards to Jacquez Jones.