Garibay draws a crowd after scoring Bonita's first touchdown of the game.

Despite three touchdowns from quarterback Cody Brazzill to receiver Ronnie Theard, Bonita lost to La Serna, 40-27 at Glenn Davis Stadium in La Verne on Thursday afternoon, unable to overcome La Serna’s balanced passing and running attack.

La Serna jumped on top quickly, marching 72 yards on its opening drive to take an early 6-0 lead. On its second offensive set, La Serna marched the ball down to Bonita’s 3-yard-line before Ryan Hickey recovered a fumbled for the Bearcats.

Bonita responded with a touchdown of its own, capped by a 26-yard Garibay run. After the extra point, Bonita led 7-6.

The lead, however, didn’t last long. La Serna ran the ensuing kick-off, a pooch kick, back for a touchdown. After the two-point conversion was successful, La Serna led 14-7.

Minutes later, it appeared the Bearcats were about to tie it up, but what looked like a second Garibay touchdown was called back because of an illegal block in the back. Then Bonita fumbled at La Serna’s 3-yard line. La Serna cashed in the miscue, going 97 yards, most of those coming on a long pass play. Just like that, Bonita trailed 22-7.

But instead of packing it in, Bonita scored seconds before the end of the first half on a 20-yard scoring strike from Brazzill to Theard to cut the lead to 22-13.

Bonita’s further closed that gap to 22-20 on its opening drive, capped by a second Brazzill-Theard hook-up. Hickey helped set up the scoring drive with a nifty run after hauling in a short screen pass.

But again, just when it appeared Bonita might seize the momentum and the game, La Serna scored with 7:28 left in the third to go up, 28-20 and retained possession after a successful squib kick to score again 34-20.

Still Bonita fought back, with Brazzill and Theard connecting for a third touchdown, but it would still not be enough.

Despite giving up 40 points to La Serna, Bonita had its moments on defense, including a great hustle play by Ed Ostershay who used his speed to run down the La Serna quarterback.

Bonita, however, simply couldn’t run down the entire La Serna team, which left town with the 40-27 victory.

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