LINDEN – Ripon Christian’s Andrew Brown broke a 91-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and found the end zone three other times to complement his 116 rushing yards Friday night against the Linden Lions.

Unfortunately for the Knight, his performance fell short of Andrew Lewis’ record-setting night during Linden’s homecoming, where he would score six touchdowns and rush for nearly 300 yards – and adding 100 yards receiving to the already impressive feat – to help the Lions roll to a 55-31 victory.

“We just made too many mistakes on defense,” Ripon Christian head coach John Vander Schaaf said. “All of their scores came off of big plays – mental mistakes on our part.

“They’re a bigger school than the ones that we play in our league, and I’m just proud of our kids and the way that they hung in there until the end.”

Linden (1-2) jumped out to an early lead but held only a 27-17 advantage at the half. It wasn’t until the third quarter when the Lions would score 21 unanswered points that it became clear that the game was out of reach.

But not even that stopped the Knights (1-2) from trying to claw back in – Ripon Christian actually outscored the Lions in the fourth quarter.

“After the last two weeks we know we’ve made some mistakes but this is a team where there isn’t a lot of finger pointing. We’ve really improved, but we have to work on being a little bit more cohesive,” Vander Schaaf said. “That’s going to be really important as we head into league.”

Ripon Christian will begin their Southern League season on Friday when they host Le Grand.

Highlands 22, Lathrop 15

Despite touchdowns from Andrew Aquino and Elijah Cash and a safety procured by their defense, Lathrop High was unable to overcome the offense of Highlands.

Lathrop (1-2) will host East Union on Friday to kick off their Valley Oak League schedule.