Either Jayden Kinsel Arredondo or Drew Altavilla had a role in all of Two Rivers’ five touchdowns on Friday night.
But both know much of the game’s credit needs to go to the guys who don’t get enough of it.
Behind a dominating offensive line, Two Rivers ran for 270 of its nearly 350 total yards in a 35-20 win at Simley.
“They just want to run people over all of the time,” Altavilla said of the three returning seniors, including 350-pound Dayven Clairmont, and two new starters which he agrees are the heart and soul of the Warriors. “They keep everybody happy. They’re a family of one every day in practice, they back each other up all the time.”
“They are the leaders of our team. If they’re not here, we really don’t have what we have,” added Delfino Mancha, who ran for 98 yards and routinely set the Warriors up with good field position with his kick and punt returns.
He and Arredondo, who ran for a team-high 111 yards, are a nice, albeit unlikely, 1-2 combination.
“He’s a big boy, he’s going to be punching it. I think I’m big, but realistically, I need to bounce to the outside sometimes. A littler guy coming in, they don’t expect it, so I lower my shoulder, always kind of works,” Mancha said. He’s listed at 5-foot-8 and 160 pounds, but acknowledged he’s more like 5-foot-4 and 140 pounds “on a good day.” Arredondo is listed at 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds but runs bigger.
While Two Rivers (1-1) pounded the ball with success; Simley focused on an air attack. Christian Urbina threw for 146 yards and three touchdowns, two to Justin Runge. Seven Spartans caught passes.
“We had more time in the pocket, we were getting off the ball faster, our receivers, than last week (a 45-7 loss at Minneapolis North), and we were more mentally there,” Urbina said.
The game can be summed up in an early third quarter sequence.
After forcing Simley (0-2) to punt, Mancha returned a punt to the Spartans’ 48-yard line. The junior followed up with a pair of rushes to the 33 before Arredondo scored from the 17 four plays later, leaping over one defender, for a 35-12 Two Rivers lead.
Urbina threw a 3-yarder to Vincent Yang that, combined with the 2-point conversion, kept it a two-score game.
Looking to maybe ice the win, Two Rivers fumbled deep in Simley territory early in the fourth quarter. Going the other way, the Spartans reached midfield, but a first down was nullified by a holding penalty before Simley turned it over on downs.
Up 7-6 in the second, Two Rivers scored 21 straight points, including a pair of 12-yard runs by Arredondo.
Two Rivers, which lost 34-14 to Spring Lake Park last week, took nearly eight minutes off the clock on its 12-play opening drive that ended with a 27-yard Lonnie West touchdown reception on fourth down. West also had a touchdown reception in the second quarter.
Taking advantage of a Warriors fumble deep in its own end, a 16-yard touchdown pass from Urbina to Runge got the Spartans on the board on the opening play of the second quarter.
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