Ferguson Proves Lucky and Good in Taft’s Victory

It was Mike Ferguson’s night Wednesday.

The Taft High quarterback completed a scoring pass that by his own admission should have been intercepted.

He broke off a 45-yard run on a routine keeper up the middle that should have been stopped after a two-yard gain.

He topped his kickoff into the back of a Fremont player and recovered it to set up the game-clinching score.

The junior quarterback passed for two touchdowns and ran for another to lead Taft to a 26-14 victory in a City Section 3-A Division quarterfinal game at Taft.

Taft will face West Valley League rival Chatsworth in a semifinal next Friday. Chatsworth hammered Bell, 31-6.

“Pretty lucky, huh?” Ferguson said, referring to the interception-turned-touchdown.

He also could have been referring to any of the aforementioned plays.

Taft (8-4) spotted Fremont (4-8) a two-touchdown lead, then roared back behind Ferguson and sophomore tailback Jerry Brown, who rushed for a personal-high 209 yards in 31 carries.

With the score tied, 14-14, Fremont seemed poised to take the lead but tailback Romell Knutt fumbled at the Taft seven and the Toreadors recovered.

Brown carried eight times on the ensuing 11-play drive, which Ferguson capped with a three-yard bootleg run for a 20-14 lead with 5 minutes 51 seconds to play. Ferguson missed the point-after.

Lining up to kick off, Ferguson tried to send a knuckleball to the deep men, but instead lined it into one of the up backs.

Taft marched in for the clinching score, Brown handling the honors with a 30-yard touchdown run for a 26-14 lead with 3:05 left.

Fremont jumped to a 14-0 lead on two scoring passes by William Yates, a left-hander with a big-league arm and a knack for the big play.

Fremont calls itself the “Bomb Squad,” and it didn’t take Yates long to show why. He threw a 28-yard scoring pass to Kory Jones for a 7-0 lead, then hit Jones on a 46-yard bomb to set up the second touchdown, a five-yard pass to Knutt.

Knutt backed over two defensive backs at the one-yard line for the score, which gave Fremont a two-touchdown lead with 2:47 left in the half.

Taft finally hit high gear on its next possession. Brown carried four times for 57 yards on the drive, then Taft got lucky to pull within a touchdown.

On first down at the Fremont 23, Ferguson fired toward Dion Gaston over the middle. Defensive back Dernel King got a hand on the ball, but it deflected to Gaston at the goal line and he scored with 55 seconds left in the half.