Pioneer football rides ground game past Ganesha, into 1st CIF title game – Whittier Daily News

POMONA — Stuck in a tight, low-scoring game at halftime, Pioneer coach Ramon Juarez made a commitment to run the ball on offense.

It paid off in a big way.

The Titans had 346 of their 502 rushing yards in the second half, scored touchdowns on five straight possessions and went on to defeat Ganesha, 49-28, in a CIF Southern Section Division 14 semifinal on Friday night at Ganesha High.

Pioneer (8-5), which was already playing in the first CIF-SS semifinal in program history, will host San Gabriel in its first championship game.

“We knew we could do it. We knew they had a lot of kids going both ways, so we could try and wear them down,” Juarez said. “We only have two or three kids going both ways.

“We made some mistakes in the first half, we fumbled on the goal line. We thought we could dominate the offensive line. We came out and started pounding the ball, we got into that power-I formation and started pounding and running the outside zone so that’s what we stuck with the whole second half.”

Pioneer led only 7-6 at halftime, as both teams turned the ball over inside their opponent’s 5-yard line.

Ganesha actually took a lead to start the second half after Pioneer turned the ball over on downs following an errant punt snap. The Giants (7-6) went ahead 14-7 when Albert Kelsey threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Ja’den Lea with 9:08 left in the third quarter.

At that point, the Titans’ offense took over, scoring five touchdowns on five drives in a 10-minute, 29-second span, all of them rushing touchdowns.

Adrian Lopez rushed for 176 of his 222 yards in the second half, Jose Rojas rushed for 80 of his 99 in the second half, and Damian Saiguero rushed for 61 of his 104 after halftime.

Meanwhile, Pioneer completed just 1 of 11 passes in the first half, and attempted only three (completing one) in the second half.

“I was going through family stuff and I put that all out on the field,” Rojas said. “I just attacked it and we got big gains. This means everything. My grandpa is coming out next week to see me play. We prayed, we planned on winning this game, the game plan was good and we took the game.”

Ganesha was already playing short-handed before the game started. Coach Andres Hernanez said multi-position junior star Shamon Farley injured his collarbone during pregame warmups and was unable to play. Farley typically rotates in at quarterback, but sophomore Albert Kelsey was the only quarterback on Friday.