By Damian Juneau
Special to American Press
WELSH — The Westlake Rams remained perfect and held off a late Welsh Greyhounds rally to take a 30-22 non district victory Friday night.
The Rams led 30-7 going into the fourth quarter before the Greyhounds made a late push. The Greyhounds’ first score of the quarter came on a Cohen Fontenot 12-yard run. The next drive saw Fontenot score on a hitch-and-pitch from 60 yards out to cut the lead to one possession. The Greyhounds looked to end zone as time expired to force overtime but were stopped by the Rams.
“I’m proud of guys to be undefeated with sloppy conditions and we played real sloppy at times,” said Westlake head coach John Richardson. “I’m proud of our kids. They fought through a lot of adversity and penalties and we are able to get the win tonight.”
Westlake (5-0) took the opening drive downfield. Brandon Jupiter scored on a 11-yard run for a 6-0 lead.
The Rams took a 14-0 lead when Jupiter scored his second touchdown with 11:22 to play in the second quarter.
The Greyhounds answered with a Fontenot 1-yard score cut the Westlake lead to 14-7 with 7:37 left in the second quarter. Welsh’s next drive stopped inside the Westlake 20-yard line.
Westlake extended its lead on a Jamaal Guillory 16-yard run with 2:02 to play in the quarter. The score was set up on a 50-yard run by Jupiter on the play before.
The Rams extended the lead in the third quarter when Tristan Goodly was on the receiving end of a 50-yard pass from Guillory with 5:49 remaining.
Westlake finished with 316 rushing yards and 113 passing yards. Leading the way for Westlake was Jupiter, who finished with 154 yards on 21 carries and scored two touchdowns. Guillory finished with 141 rushing yards, 113 passing yards and rushed and passed for a score. Goodly finished with 88 receiving yards on six receptions.
“We were able to move the ball and did a good job with but killed ourselves with penalties,” Richardson said. “We have to clean that up and move on from tonight and prepare for next week.”
Welsh finished with 199 rushing yards and 59 passing yards. Fontenot finished with 153 yards on 19 carries and scored all three touchdowns.
“We are a resilient football team and my kids they want to win no matter what and will play hard no matter what,” Welsh head coach Cody Gueringer said. “We didn’t execute in the first half as penalties, turnovers and bad mistakes hurt us, and we can’t have against a really good football team.”
