RIVERSIDE – Josef Luckey ran for three long touchdowns as Norte Vista defeated Corona, 49-22, in a nonleague game Thursday night.
Luckey gained 128 yards on nine carries for Norte Vista (3-1 overall), which totaled 327 rushing yards in the victory.
“I feel like I just have to be there for my team, and they needed somebody to step up and I had to be there,” Luckey said. “But we’re going to have to work harder. As a group, we still have to get better.”
Luckey, one of four tailbacks attempting to fill the hole created by the injury to senior Chris Melesio, ran for touchdowns of 30, 40 and 22 yards, respectively.
The 6-foot-1, 185-pound junior transfer from Valencia scored on his final two carries of the first half and then on his first touch of the second half.
“We weren’t going to use him at all until Chris got hurt and then it was like, ‘Maybe we can use him,’ and he is fast,” Norte Vista coach Ken Batdorf said. “He looked pretty good in practice, and he ran hard tonight so we’re pleased.”
Keyon Gibson had 11 catches for 118 yards and two touchdowns but Corona (2-3) was held to minus-11 rushing yards in dropping its third consecutive game.
“(Norte Vista) did a great job. They kicked our butts. They came downhill and they beat us up,” Corona coach Ron Gueringer said. “They did some things to us defensively and we got in a hole early, and it was hard to get out of it.”
Miron Hazem capped Norte Vista’s opening 14-play, 91-yard drive with a seven-yard touchdown run, and it was mostly downhill running from there as the Braves gained 197 yards on the ground in the first half.
Eddie Allain scored on a short run near the end of the first quarter, and Luckey broke free for the first two of his three touchdowns as Norte Vista built a 28-0 lead.
Corona quarterback Xavier Reyero passed for two touchdowns in the second quarter and was 16 of 23 for 130 yards in the first half, but was sacked five times for 35 yards and didn’t get Corona in the end zone until the Panthers’ fifth drive of the game.
“I thought he played well at times but just like everything else we have to be able to protect him,” Gueringer said. “We didn’t do a great job of protecting him but he was a trooper and he hung in there and took a lot of beatings.”
Corona’s Luckey and Allain added rushing touchdowns in the third quarter, and the Braves used a 14-play drive to milk a running clock in the fourth quarter.
Gibson scored his second touchdown of the game on a 10-yard reception with 15 second remaining, and then caught the ensuing two-point conversion attempt for the final points of the game.
Corona topped Norte Vista, 56-42, last year in the schools’ first meeting in more than a decade. Gibson had seven catches for 170 yards and three touchdowns in the win, and Norte Vista’s Melesio rushed for 301 yards and two touchdowns.