Ranked #16 by the Sacramento Bee, the River Valley Falcons came to Marion Adams Memorial Stadium looking to spoil the Rio Linda Knights homecoming game, and while the Knights lost this game 35-27, it was hard fought and in question right up to the last 90 seconds of game time.
The Knights came out of the gates slow, and maybe they didn’t take this much improved Falcons team as seriously as they should have. The Knights recovered a fumble on the opening kickoff, but were unable to capitalize on the excellent field position. The Falcons scored twice in the first half, but also missed a field goal and an extra point kick.
With four seconds left to play, the Knights pulled off a prayer of a play. QB Tyson Ybarra was chased out of the pocket, and scrambled from one sideline to the other and about 30 yards backwards. When he was tired of running he tossed up a jump ball toward the middle front of the end zone, which slipped through WR Jeremiah McCoy‘s hands and those of two River Valley defenders, and dropped into the hands of sophomore RB Abraham Banks well after time had expired. The teams headed into half time with a score of 13-7.
It was obvious coming out of the locker room that the team had some fire to start the second half. Banks wasn’t done. He ran the opening kickoff back 95 yards for a touchdown to open the second half. Rio Linda goes on top for the first time in the game 14-13.
Just two minutes later the Falcons answered back with a 53-yard touchdown run by junior RB Evan Strickland.
Entering the 4th quarter, sophomore RB Cameron Skattebo scored on a 2-yard run. The teams went into the 4th quarter tied at 21.
The Falcons scored twice more in the fourth quarter, and The Knights scored on a 5 yard pass with about 2 minutes left to bring the Knights within 8 points.
With about 90 seconds left in the game, the Knights were on defense and recovered a Falcons fumble… or so we thought. The fumble was obvious to everyone in the stadium except the referees. The zebras denied the fumble, and denied the Knights a shot at tying the game up. I’ll let the MaxPreps commentary speak:
In the end, River Valley wins, and goes to 5-0 on the year. This is only the second time RV has gone 5-0 to start in the schools history, and places them 1-0 in league play. The Knights fall to 4-2 on the year.
Our Knights go on the road for the entire month of October, playing October 6 in Yuba City, October 20 at Woodland, and October 27 at Pioneer (Woodland). October 13 is a bye week. Rio Linda then comes home to face Inderkum on November 3 to finish up the season.
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