RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – Tesoro was looking for a lift Friday night after a tough, season-opening loss last week.
For Chaparral of Temecula, things wound up going in the exact opposite direction.
Junior quarterback Devon Modster threw for a touchdown and ran for two others as Tesoro rebounded from a three-point loss to La Mirada last week with a convincing 24-19 nonleague victory over visiting Chaparral.
“That was a heck of a way for us to bounce back,” Titans coach Matt Poston said. “That’s a really good program over there that we beat tonight.”
Modster was a two-way wrecking ball against the Pumas as he ran for 133 yards and threw for 131, providing the edge in a meeting between teams ranked Nos. 7 and 8 in the CIF-Southern Section West Valley Division.
“He’s a great football player,” Poston said, “and we really rode him tonight.”
The Titans (1-1) had to, thanks to a near-heroic effort by the Chaparral defense.
The Pumas, who trounced Victor Valley, 64-0, in their opener a week ago, stayed within reach of Tesoro in the second half, even after the Titans went up 24-13 on Justin Matlin’s 30-yard field goal with 5:11 remaining.
Tesoro started three third-quarter drives in Chaparral territory, yet converted on just one.
That allowed the Pumas to cut the lead to five when quarterback Austin Reza faked an end-around and launched a 68-yard touchdown pass to senior Darrien Molton with 4:15 remaining.
A moment later, Chaparral appeared to recover an onside kick after the ball touched a Tesoro player, but officials ruled it had not touched a player and was instead short of the required 10 yards.
Reza completed 14 of 25 passes for 207 yards, but his offense was hurt by two turnovers, a blocked punt and a recovered onside kick by Tesoro.
Contact the writer: preps@ocregister.com
