Week 4 Prep Blitz: Madera High’s Rios keeps on kicking winners for Coyotes

He’s a little guy wearing the team’s biggest jersey number, doesn’t score touchdowns or make tackles.

But, with all respect to the enormously talented wide receiver/cornerback Kris Bueno, an argument could be made that Evan Rios is Madera High’s most valuable player.

The 5-foot-7, 170-pound senior has won four games in two seasons with field goals in the final 2 minutes, the latest a 37-yarder with 21 seconds remaining to beat Hoover 30-27 last week at McLane Stadium.

Coyotes coach Bonner Cunnings puts it this way: “Evan’s a viable member of our team who is going to score 12 points a game no matter what. He’s changing the way I’m coaching from here on out. It changes everything when you can put in a kid from 40 yards and he’s going to make the field goal.”

Madera (3-0), ranked 20th overall in the section and No. 2 in Division III by The Bee a year after it placed second to Hanford in the division, will play Tulare Western (2-1) on Friday night in a nonleague game at 7:30 p.m. at Bob Mathias Stadium.

And it will be there that the spotlight will once again follow Rios, whose theater began last October against Bullard at McLane Stadium.

In his first season of football, the lifelong soccer player kicked four field goals, including a 51-yarder. The last, a 37-yarder with 2 minutes remaining, lifted the Coyotes to a 32-31 win for their first conquest of the Knights in 20 years, according to section historian Bob Barnett.

“He didn’t feel the pressure against Bullard because he had no clue, he didn’t know,” Cunnings said. “But now he gets it. We put him at impossible distances in practice to put him under pressure, and it’s working.”

Rios beat Mission Oak 31-28 with a 32-yarder in double overtime in last year’s D-III semifinals. He opened this season by beating Los Banos 42-39 with a 38-yarder as time expired.

Colleges are paying attention.

“Oh yeah,” Cunnings said. “Evan’s been invited to kicking camps all over the nation – Nevada, USC, Stanford, Alabama. He’s on the radar, big time.”

Sunnyside producing TV games – The Community Media Access Collaborative is partnering with Sunnyside’s Video Production Academy to produce three football games live on television, beginning Friday with the Wildcats’ home contest against San Joaquin Memorial at 7:30 p.m.

Also on the slate are Sunnyside games against visiting Stockdale on Oct. 2 and versus Roosevelt on Oct. 30 at McLane Stadium.

The games will be broadcast live on CMAC’s Education Channel (Comcast 94, AT&T U-verse 99) and streamed online at cmac.tv. Play-by-play and color commentary will be provided by Nick Papagni and Fred Clark.

While the CMAC staff will be on-site for technical support and guidance, the video crew is made up entirely of students from Sunnyside’s academy, a program led by instructor Katie McQuone.

Bullpups’ Hughes is out – Hanford wide receiver/cornerback Juwuane Hughes, a Bee All-Star in football and basketball, will be sidelined six to eight weeks, coach Josh Young said, after breaking his left forearm in a 27-21 win at Porterville last week.

That’s a mighty blow for the section’s top-ranked team in D-III, losing a highly recruited athlete who helped lead the school to section football (D-III) and basketball (D-II) titles last year.

This story was originally published September 24, 2015 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Week 4 Prep Blitz: Madera High’s Rios keeps on kicking winners for Coyotes."