Fallon leads at half, but Mustangs rally to win

RENO – In a tale of two halves that saw the Fallon football team jump out to a halftime lead over a 5A school on the road, Damonte Ranch came back to prevent the upset with a 31-14 win in south Reno on Friday.

Fallon dropped to 1-2 on the season and travels to South Tahoe on Friday to resume its 3A crossover schedule before hosting Truckee next week for Homecoming. Damonte Ranch picked up its first win of the J.J. Milan era after the Mustangs were blown out by Manogue, Truckee and Faith Lutheran last month.

The Greenwave had momentum on its side from the first series of the game when it drove 76 yards for the first score.

Quarterback Matthew Bird took the first snap of the game and raced down the left sideline in front of the Fallon bench to set up a first down from the Mustangs’ 11-yard line. When it looked like the drive would result in a field goal, an offsides penalty changed Fallon’s call to go for it on fourth down with 4 yards to go. Carson Melendy ran up the middle to give Fallon a 7-0 lead with 9 minutes, 42 seconds left in the first quarter.

After both teams couldn’t get a first down, Damonte Ranch’s Donovin Aguirre kicked a 34-yard field goal to close the gap to four points with less than three minutes left in the quarter.

While Fallon’s offense struggled in the second quarter, the Mustangs couldn’t avoid penalties, which resulted in two first-down plays being called back, leading to a punt from midfield with six minutes left in the first half.

Another stalled drive for Fallon resulted in a short punt that gave Damonte Ranch possession on Fallon’s 34-yard line with 3:57 to go. Another penalty resulted in a first-down play being negated, which led to Manny Karaway’s interception.

On the next play, Bird’s play-action pass found Wyatt Peek running down the left sideline at the midfield line for an 86-yard touchdown to give Fallon a 14-3 lead with 1:47 left in the half.

Damonte Ranch, though, took over the second half, scoring on its first drive when Kanon Boggs found Amari Nash for a 36-yard touchdown three minutes into the quarter.

Both teams were forced to punt on their next series before Fallon started to create momentum after it crossed midfield with less than five minutes left in the quarter. A bad snap, incomplete pass and loss of yards forced Fallon to punt for the second-straight time.

Like Damonte Ranch’s penalties negating first-down plays in the first half, Fallon’s defense was flagged for back-to-back facemask penalties, which set up the Mustangs’ 21-yard touchdown run when Kobe Craig crossed the end zone to give his team its first lead of the night, 17-14, with 1:05 left in the quarter.

Fallon had its best drive of the half when Bird found Barry Mitchell for a 13-yard completion on 4th-and-4 at midfield in the fourth quarter. A fumbled snap on second down plus an incompletion forced Fallon to punt.

Fallon had another chance after the defense forced Damonte Ranch to punt.

With Colin Shishido at quarterback, Fallon picked up 9 yards on first down from Fallon’s 6-yard line before Melendy’s 6-yard run gave the Greenwave a first down. The next set of downs, though, resulted in a negative running play and incomplete pass before Shishido was picked off by Carsen Galvin.

Craig took over with a 23-yard carry before crossing the goal line on an 8-yard touchdown run with 2:18 left in the game to give Damonte Ranch a 10-point lead.

On Fallon’s second play of the next series, Galvin picked off Shishido again, returning it 16 yards for a touchdown.