Tied 7-7 at the half, Escalon’s JV football Cougars hit their stride over the final two quarters, putting away visiting Linden by a 28-7 final on Friday night.

The teams traded scores in the first half, Escalon breaking through first on a 6-yard run from Dustin Lawrence in the first quarter and David Martinez adding the point after.

Linden answered in the second quarter with a 1-yard run (kick good) to knot the score.

The offense really got things moving when the team came back out from the locker room, head coach Randy Northcutt doing a little motivating with his halftime speech.

Hunter Calton scored on a 27-yard run in the third quarter (kick failed) and then on a 64-yard run later in the same frame. This time, Lawrence took in the 2-point conversion and the host JV squad was up 21-7.

In the fourth quarter, the final score of the night for Escalon came on a 27-yard touchdown pass from Dylan Azevedo to Sam Lattig, with Martinez adding the point after.

“It was 7-7 at half but it should have been a lot more,” Northcutt said, adding that was the reason for some motivational talk at halftime.

He pointed to the efforts of Joey Dutra, Lawrence and Luis N. Estrada as having good games on defense for the JV Cougars.

Escalon had 338 total yards of offense on 36 rushes for 283 yards and three touchdowns, two pass completions for 55 yards and a score.

Calton was the work horse; five carries for 134 yards, Lawrence had 16 carries for 116 yards. Martinez rushed the ball eight times for 63 yards as well and Lattig had both catches on the night.

Sacks were recorded by Wyatt Cockrell and Daniel Wallace.

“We had a slow start,” Northcutt said. “But they got better.”

The JV team faces off with Patterson on the road Sept. 20 at 5 p.m.