On August 17th, John W. North’s football team kicked off the 2023 preseason against their cross-town rival Ramona High School. Although their history stems back many years, the rivalry came to a peak last year in the 22/23 season when the Huskies lost to the Rams 25-35 at Ramona on August 16, 2022.
This year, a rematch of sorts was scheduled for August 17, 2023, this time at the home of the Huskies. On August 16, the frosh team started the week off strong with a 30-6 win at home. The junior varsity game got postponed due to the high heat.
The following day, the varsity squad suited up to play Ramona and redeem themselves for the previous year. By halftime, the Huskies were up 20-0 and hopes were high for an easy win. However, they found themselves chasing the game when Ramona came back in the third quarter and went up by one point due to a field goal missed by North earlier in the game.
With less than a minute left on the clock, the score was 34-35 with the Rams in the lead. The game was tight and it wasn’t looking good for the Huskies until their quarterback, #12 Cameron Shannon, threw the ball to #11, Dylan Boucher, scoring the winning touchdown and making the game 40-35. The Huskies went for the two-point conversion for some extra safety, and the ball was successfully caught in the endzone by #8 Carson Branch. The game ended shortly after, the final score being 42-35.
In the early stages of the game, #3 Kalos Granger was able to retrieve a fumble to get North the ball back. “I felt amazing. It was a big turning point in the game, I think it picked up a lot of our momentum and it really got us going, obviously, because from there we went up twenty to zero so I think it was a big turning point in the game.”
Anthony Zavala.#2, scored one touchdown in the game and assisted another off a trick play with Cameron Shannon, who ran the ball fifty-four yards into the end zone. A big theme of the game was overcoming adversity. When asked, Zavala says, “I felt great in the first half, but then they started coming back. And like Kalos was saying, it’s adversity. We have to go through adversity to win the game and that’s what we did. We went out in the second half, we didn’t give up and we kept keeping each other positive and kept going forward.”
Unfortunately, the momentum didn’t carry into their next game against Beaumont, where the frosh team lost 55-24, junior varsity lost 41-0, and varsity lost 52-7. Anthony Zavala scored the lone touchdown for the varsity squad, with #45 Alonna Hooking up with the other places Huskies played Chino Hills at home and lost 36-3 on September 1st, with Alonna’s kick being the only points on the board.
Hopefully, the Huskies can change the tide and put a win in the books against Martin Luther King High School on September 21st at home. This will be their first time playing King in school history, so they are aiming for a big win to help boost morale.
