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Alfar loses out on homecoming crown, leads Mustangs to win

Shadow Ridge running back Cody Alfar was introduced Friday night at halftime as a homecoming king candidate. But when Mustangs soccer standout Aric Kraft won the crown, Alfar said the second half was his time to steal the headlines and introduce himself to everyone as king of the football field.

“That’s exactly what happened,” Alfar said after the game. “I just got my head together, read my blocks a lot better. I figured out the other team and how they run their defense.”

The senior rushed for 116 second-half yards to carry the offensive burden, while helping to sustain the Mustangs’ time-consuming drives and contributing to a 34-14 win over visiting Sierra Vista.

“He’s a good running back, we tell him to stay between the tackles,” Shadow Ridge interim caoch Gus Gledhill said. “There’s a couple times in the first half when he went outside, and the defensive end was waiting for him. We told him he had to hit the holes hard, it’s gonna be there and that’s what he did. He’s tough; he puts his head down and gets those extra yards.”

And while Alfar put in the blue-collar work for the Mustangs and finished with 150 yards on 19 carries, it was quarterback Dustin Puia who accounted for four touchdowns. Puia passed for 71 yards and rushed for 40, including two TDs. He also passed for two scores, including a 59-yard touchdown strike to J Henderson in the fourth quarter to put the game away.

“We told them we had to get a little more physical up front,” said Gledhill, who has been coaching the Mustangs the past few weeks while head coach Frank Tousa has been recovering from a medical procedure. “Our whole objective was to try to run the football tonight, and I think we did a good job of that the second half.”

Though Sierra Vista (2-4, 1-1) started the scoring with a safety at the 5:38 mark of the first quarter, to take a 2-0 lead, four first half fumbles cost the Mountain Lions dearly, including two that Shadow Ridge recovered inside the red zone.

Led by Henderson, who was swarming the football while on defense, the Mustangs terrorized both of Sierra Vista’s quarterbacks - Kenneth Faccinto and Randal Grimes - hitting them in the backfield for a loss of yards on at least eight occasions.

Running back Maliek Broady rushed for 125 yards on 12 carries for the Mountain Lions.

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