SAN FRANCISCO — The stage was set for a perfect narrative on Friday afternoon.
A Lowell program rising from the ashes with a group of three-year starters played host to a Lincoln team that hadn’t lost a game to an Academic Athletic Association opponent since 2018, a perfect chance to knock off the big boys in front of an impressive home crowd on Senior Day.
The back-to-back league champs were having none of it.
Lincoln (4-3, 3-0 AAA) overcame an early 85-yard touchdown and outscored the Cardinals 17-0 in the second quarter en route to a 23-7 win, the Mustangs’ 19th straight victory over league opponents when combining regular season and playoff results.
“We figured it out and just played,” Lincoln head coach Phil Ferrigno said. “They’re gonna have some big plays, but I thought we shut them down well.”
While they mainly chewed up clock with short, efficient runs, the Mustangs made a few big plays of their own, primarily on defense. Lincoln’s defense came away with four takeaways, with none bigger than Joshua Mah’s 35-yard pick six in the second quarter to put the visitors up 10-7.
“I was supposed to be in the deep third, but I saw the receiver was on the far side,” Mah said. “I think that really pumped up the team.”
His interception highlighted a dominant second quarter for the titleholders, who got on the board a minute before Mah’s interception on Lucas Roth’s 30-yard field goal. They opened up a two-score lead with 2:33 left in the first half thanks to the legs of Ricky Underwood, who ran on 10 of 11 plays on the drive, including a three-yard score to cap it off.
“He’s just a natural athlete and we put him in the right positions,” Ferrigno said of Underwood, who didn’t play as a freshman and lost his sophomore season to COVID.
Underwood, who ran 33 times for 194 yards and a pair of scores, is the latest in a line of tireless Lincoln running backs that previously saw Desean Crawford and Luis Contreras run rampant on defenses, with Contreras carrying 91 times across his final two games. Underwood capped things off late in the fourth with a 36-yard touchdown run and the last of the Mustang defense’s three interceptions.
Between Underwood’s two scores, the Lincoln defense held Lowell (5-3, 3-1) in check. The Cardinals advanced into enemy territory on their final drive of the second quarter on Adrian Navarro’s 16-yard carry, his longest of the day, but Riordan transfer Jaren Estillore tipped a pass that Hezekiah Davis intercepted. Late in the third, Lowell crossed midfield with Reese Miller’s 26-yard completion to Nicolo Chiera-Sciammas, but Marcel Bruce recovered a fumble after Diego Cristerna stripped the ball carrier in the backfield on the very next play.
Even with those mistakes, the Cardinals still had their share of chances. Chiera-Sciammas gained 24 yards on a reverse and Miller’s 17-yard completion to Stevie Rivas was nearly doubled with a late hit on Lincoln, but after reaching the 1-yard line on the final play of the third quarter, Lowell came up empty after two negative runs and an incompletion on fourth down.
“It’s a learning process. We’ll bounce back from this, I hope,” Lowell head coach Danny Chan said after his team’s three-game winning streak came to an end on Senior Day. “Because we lost that year to COVID, we have to fast forward all our learning.”
Miller completed 11-of-23 passes for 165 yards and hit Jack Oskanian for an 85-yard score, but the Cardinals were outgained 259-65 on the ground, with Navarro limited by lingering injuries. His first carry didn’t come until late in the second quarter, and he was held to 25 yards on eight rushes after entering the day averaging 9.25 yards per carry and 166.5 per game.
“We all rallied to the ball,” Davis said of the Lincoln defense. “We knew our assignments and we knew to hit the gaps after the linemen blocked the B gaps for us. They were usually looking for the inside zone and we shut down the windpipe screens.”
The Mustangs will face Mission (2-5, 1-2) next Friday afternoon at Kezar Stadium. Lowell’s next game will be next Thursday afternoon, when the Cardinals pay a visit to longtime rival Washington (2-4, 2-1).
