WEEK FOUR FOOTBALL – Norwalk lays down the hammer on Paramount, remains undefeated heading into bye

By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X

There were two weeks remaining in the 2024 season when Norwalk High hosted Paramount High in a battle of undefeated Mid-Cities League teams. Both teams were 3-0 in league, but the Pirates came away with a 28-7 win, won the league and moved up to the Gateway League for this season while the Lancers settled for second place.

For the past 11 months, every player returning for the Lancers, and the coaching staff remembered how the Pirates put the hammer down on them, and they vowed not let that happen again as they were reunited last Friday night in a non-league game.

While the running game was business as usual, it was the Norwalk defense that hunkered down in the second half, recovering a fumble, getting an interception and surviving 34 plays and 104 yards put together by the Pirates in the final 24 minutes.

That second half performance enabled the Lancers to hold on to a 21-14 victory as they remained undefeated in five games. It’s the best start in program history since the 2022 team won its first six games. Before that, the fastest start to any season came in 2013 when Norwalk won the first 13 games before falling to La Serna High in the CIF-Southern Section Southeast Division championship game.

“Ever since last year, we felt that salty taste in our mouth, and we felt they had the hammer on us,” said senior running back Diego Cerritos. “We needed to get that back [in this game].”

Cerritos added that the talk of revenge against Paramount, even though it wasn’t going to be a league game this season, began in the summer.

“I was going crazy on that; that was the only roadblock [last season], and I was so glad we did it [tonight],” he admitted. “That’s what I’m proud of the most.”

“They had the hammer on us last year,” said Norwalk head coach Ruben Guerrero. “I knew they were up to play us; they wanted to shut us down, and they did a good job when we first started. We had to make some adjustments, we had to change a couple of things up and when we found some success, we stuck with it, and it kept working.”

Norwalk’s offense had a rare three and out in the first possession of the game and was forced to punt two and half minutes into the contest. The Pirates took advantage and rode the legs of Dae’Jon Massey, who ran five straight times after an incomplete pass from Nicko Hernandez. That led to a five-yard touchdown run from Serafin Solis and a 7-0 lead.

After that, the Norwalk defense buckled down and held Paramount to 27 yards on 13 plays the remaining 18:35 of the first half. Meanwhile, the Lancers got their rushing attack of Cerritos and senior running back Daron Walker going to begin the second quarter.

Starting at their own 42-yard line, Cerritos and Walker combined for 51 yards on 10 rushes and the Lancers tied the game on Walker’s two-yard run with 5:36 left in the first half. The teams would combine for eight plays the rest of the half, but it was apparent the Lancers were finding their groove again.

“It was 0-0,” Guerrero said to his team at halftime. “We were flat in the first quarter; it was 0-0 at the half and it’s a brand new ballgame. This [game] winded down to two quarters. That’s what we said. Our game was two quarters now.”

“In the first quarter, we got a reality check,” said Cerritos. “But in the second quarter, I had a talk with the O-line and our quarterback [senior Axel Bustamante], and we just had the motivation to get back up and just smack them in the mouth again.”

The third quarter would see two different turning points as the defense forced the Pirates to punt on their opening drive of the second half. Norwalk took advantage and added 51 more rushing yards to its total on eight plays, capped by a six-yard run by Cerritos with 5:59 left in the stanza.

“It felt really good knowing that we stopped them, and it just gave us that boost of confidence,” said Cerritos. “We just ended up hammering them.”

The second turning point came with 2:25 remaining when Massey fumbled near midfield and four plays later, Walker scored the deciding touchdown on a five-yard run with 76 seconds left in the quarter. Paramount responded with an 11-play, 83-yard drive which ended when Hernandez tossed a 15-yard touchdown pass to Deon Anthony with 7:21 left in regulation.

On the next play, Norwalk fumbled but its defense picked up the slack again as Walker picked off Hernandez at the seven-yard line with 4:08 left.

“My hat’s off, and thank you to our defense,” said Guerrero. “Our defense was on the field all night tonight and they bent, but they didn’t break. Deron was tough there; that last drive we had a three and out [on offense]. But these kids have a motor that won’t quit, and they kept us in the game.

“These guys were stout, and we knew that from last year,” he later commented on Paramount. “They had some guys coming back and we knew they were going to be physical; they were going to have it out for us. And just like Venice [last week], we knew that we were going to be in a good old fashioned dogfight tonight.”

Cerritos rushed for 134 yards on 20 carries, while Walker added 97 yards on 14 touches. Those two were virtually the only offense Norwalk had, or needed, as Bustamante attempted one pass, which was incomplete, and senior running back Edward DeLeon had one rush for seven yards. Cerritos and Walker are both within 250 yards of surpassing the 1,000-yard mark, something that is synonymous with the program and the double wing offense that Guerrero runs. Last season, Cerritos rushed for 1,268 yards while watching then-senior Ezra Meuller gain over 2,000 yards.

“I feel like we’re just putting in the work both together; knowing that we’re doing it together just feels really good,” said Cerritos. “I’m glad to enjoy this with my boy, who is also a senior. So, I won’t have that remorse knowing that I left him behind.”

Norwalk will be off Friday to rest and prepare for the Mid-Cities League opener against Lynwood High on Oct. 3.

“We’re going to take this one day at a time; one week at a time,” said Guerrero. “We don’t take anything for granted because we’ve been in some dogfights the last three weeks. These guys are battle-tested, we’ll take them as they come and there’s this thing. For some reason, everybody always gets up to play Norwalk. So I think we’re going to see the best of everybody in league including Gahr and Bellflower.”