After a 12-6 win in the season opener, Christopher now has its eyes fixed on Live Oak. The Acorns, which beat Gilroy 31-21, and Cougars are 1-0 heading into this week and a win for either will put them one step closer to being South County champions. Christopher, which beat Sobrato, Live Oak and Gilroy last season, are the defending champs but it won’t be an easy task defending the title.
Both teams put up similar numbers last week despite Live Oak scoring more points, meaning this should be an evenly matched contest.
The Acorns covered more yards on the ground—picking up 241 to Christopher’s 152 against Sobrato—but the Cougars have the edge aerially, racking up 213 to Live Oak’s 189.
“They’re a pretty darn good team,” Pierleoni said. “Obviously their quarterback had an excellent game last week; they run the ball pretty well. They’ve got some good running backs and defensively they run around and make some tackles. … We’ll go back and look at the film, but I thought we were just a little off. We dropped a couple passes and our front’s going to have to play a little bit better; both sides of the ball.”
The similiarities continue on the other side of the ball. Live Oak racked up 46 tackles and picked off two Gilroy passes and was lead by its defensive powerhouse Ryan Quadros who had 10 solo tackles. Christopher had only 25 tackles—11 of which belonged to Moen—but added four sacks, three interceptions. Pierleoni said his defense is preparing the same way for the Acorns—by studying them inside and out.
“Really what it’ll come down to is what we think we can do against them and what they’re taking away from us and try to take advantage of that. It’s a lot like a chess match once the game starts for everybody,” Pierleoni said. “We’ll do the same thing (we did last week)—we’ll defend what we believe they do well.”
Christopher did, however, turnover the ball three times and we’re plagued by penalities—especially in the first half when it lost 50 yards off five flags. Fortunately for the Cougars, the penalities didn’t hurt them but Pierleoni said they can’t make the same mistakes in their 7:30 p.m. Friday home contest against Live Oak.
“I think that was a big key to last week’s game. The penalities and turnovers hurt each team, but maybe them a little more than us,” he said. “I think if they don’t turn the ball over so much it might’ve been a different game. Again it’ll be the same thing: try to force them to do something they’re not comfortable with doing and have us take advantage of it.”
