Honkers earn rematch against Bears

The Willows High football team will have a chance for some pay-back when it makes the drive south on Interstate 5 for its Division III semi-final game against Pierce on Friday.

On Oct. 28 the Bears crashed the Honkers' Homecoming party with a 35-14 win and ended Willows' chance at a share of the Sacramento Valley League title.

In that game, Pierce running back Isaiah Garcia ran for 274 yards and two touchdowns and the defense tallied eight sacks.

"We know we have to pick up the effort because that's a good football team," Willows coach Jim Ward said. "They're physical and (Garcia) is really good."

The Honkers played without two-way starter Drake Matteson in the first half of that game, falling behind 14-7, but were able to put together some offense in the second half when he returned.

Matteson carried seven times for 45 yards in the second half and the Honkers nearly tied the game at 21-21, but a long touchdown pass was called back on an offensive pass interference and Willows couldn't recover.

Pierce (9-1, 5-1 SVL runners-up) pulled away in the fourth quarter for the win but Willows (8-3, 4-2 SVL) is motivated to make sure that doesn't happen again.

"That's your goal every year to get to this time of year. Our goal is to always play the night before Thanksgiving - it'll be a lot of hard work because we know what's ahead of us," Ward said.

The Honkers aren't the only team to struggle stopping the Bears' dynamic senior juggernaut. Garcia rushed for a school-record 2,005 yards this season at a clip of more than 11 yards a carry. His 27 touchdowns are four shy of Jake Honsvick's school record set in 2004.

Garcia currently sits in 14th on the single-season rushing list and is creeping up on the Northern Section record of 2,354 yards set by Dunsmuir High's Bill Carlquist in 1966.

In two games since losing to the Bears, Willows knocked off a tough Live Oak team 18-14 in the final game of the regular season and crushed Esparto High 42-14 in the first round of the playoffs.

The Bears are plenty confident but aren't going to look past Willows, coach Scott Burnum said.

"We're expecting a tough game, they're 8-3 and their losses were to Orland, us and Durham and we lost to Durham," Burnum said. "All three losses were against good teams so this isn't a cupcake."

After beating the Honkers, Pierce rolled a struggling University Prep team 64-14 to close out the regular season and earned a bye in the first round as the No. 2 seed behind Durham.

Burnum isn't too worried about rust after a bye week because the last time Pierce had a bye they had a strong first half against Williams and went on to win four in a row.

The extra week gave the Bears more time to prepare for the Honkers, he said.

"We've been focused on Willows for two weeks and I think (Ward) knows that too," Burnum said.

Pierce is the No. 8 ranked team in California in the Division IV Cal-Hi Sports State Rankings and is No. 7 in the MaxPreps rankings, which are based on the Freeman Computer Ratings.

Both teams can score points, Pierce is averaging more than 33 points a game and Willows averages more than 28 points, but the biggest difference has been on defense where the Honkers are allowing more than 23 points, nearly 10 more points a game than the Bears allow.

Pierce is built around the 1-2 punch of Garcia and fullback Andy Corona, who has carried 135 times for 759 yards and five touchdowns. Combined, Garcia and Corona touch the ball on 74 percent of the Bears' plays.

Willows features a much more balanced attack. Matteson has 1,007 yards rushing and 11 touchdowns, Ryan Welsh is a triple threat with 662 yards rushing, 379 receiving and 107 passing, while scoring nine times. Quarterback Justin Fortunato has thrown for 956 yards and 13 touchdowns, his favorite target is Alex Alves who has 23 receptions for 499 yards and six scores.

CONTACT Kirk Barron at 458-2121 or kbarron@tcnpress.com.