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Defense strategy leads to gridders’ first home win of season

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Ramona High School’s football team has a bye this Friday and then will begin Palomar League play with road games Oct. 9 at Mt. Carmel and Oct. 16 at Westview.

“The next five games are against five very good teams,” said head coach Damon Baldwin. “We’ve got a tough road ahead of us.”

The Bulldogs will enter league play with a 3-2 record. Ramona’s first home win of the season Sept. 25 was a 41-6 victory over Sweetwater.

“We played phenomenal on defense,” Baldwin said.

During the week before the game Baldwin and his assistant coaches worked on strategies to stop Sweetwater’s double wing sniffer offense.

Our staff did a great job of coming up with a plan that completely stopped that offense,” Baldwin said.

The Red Devils had gains of more than 10 yards on only two occasions.

“It took a lot of discipline from the kids to execute like that every play,” Baldwin said.

Ramona held a 41-0 lead before the Red Devils scored their only touchdown.

“They drove down a little bit at the end against our backups,” Baldwin said.

None of Ramona’s offensive starters played on that side of the ball during the second half, although due to numbers some defensive starters remained in the game. Injuries limited Baldwin’s substitution options.

“It was a very costly victory because we lost three very critical players to our team,” Baldwin said.

Although every Ramona substitute saw action, a 35-point lead triggers a running clock and such a margin was obtained during the third period.

Ramona’s special teams also contributed to the Bulldogs’ success.

Four of Ramona’s six touchdowns were scored by two sophomores. Caleb Berman blocked a punt and then recovered the ball for one touchdown. His other touchdown was as a rusher.

The other sophomore who scored twice, Tristan Stacy, caught two touchdown passes from Marco Cobian.

Seniors Sean Stemm and Grady Vazquez scored one rushing touchdown apiece.

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