Gilroy starts slow against San Benito, but rallies in
encouraging finale to scrimmage; quarterback Hemeon suffers leg
injury that puts his season in doubt
Hollister – A work in progress. The Gilroy High football team knows that it is far from a finished product at this point. But if Friday evening was any indication, the Mustangs are liable to improve each time they set foot on the football field.
Despite a slow start to the scrimmage with San Benito, once the Mustangs got their bearings at Andy Hardin Stadium, they reeled off several plays that showed first-year head coach Rich Hammond that he has a resilient group.
“We got better as it went along,” Hammond said. “We battled. In the end, we had some adversity, but we battled. And that’s what I wanted to see out there.”
Said running back Paul Gonzales: “It was a good little taste of what’s going to come the rest of the season. I think we did real well towards the end. We saw Hollister was going to bring it and we stepped it up. We worked as a team and everything clicked.”
With both teams amped up to hit with another team for the first time, hard, physical play dominated the evening. While the live-game conditions gave the players the opportunity to adjust to the speed and bruising nature that don’t fully come out in practice, the Mustangs fell victim to an injury that significantly alters the team’s lineup and depth just a week before the season begins.
In an 11-on-11 scrimmage towards the end of the evening, senior quarterback Matt Hemeon plunged through the line on a running play only to fall to the ground writhing in pain after colliding with members of the ‘Balers’ second-team defense. While the extent of Hemeon’s leg injury remained unknown, it appeared that Hemeon could find himself sidelined for a significant part of the season for the second straight year.
“I just feel real bad for him and his bad luck,” Hammond said of Hemeon.
With Hemeon’s injury, senior Mark Vegas looks to be the player under center when the Mustangs take the field against Burlingame next week.
“We had two seniors competing for our quarterback job,” Hammond said. “Coming out of this game, we’ll obviously have our starter.”
The evening was noteworthy for another reason – Hammond returning to a town in which he starred as a ‘Balers safety and later coached with mentor Chris Cameron, the San Benito head coach. Patrolling the Gilroy sidelines with a blue visor, Hammond said it didn’t take long to put his past aside.
“It felt funny at first walking in, but you know, the group of guys I’m coaching, they’re a real special group,” he said. “We’ve got what I call a brotherhood. They’re my guys and I wouldn’t have wanted to be with anyone else.”
After San Benito appeared to have a physical edge over the Mustangs in the split-field workouts and the early stages of the 11-on-11 scrimmages, the Mustangs rallied to take the action to their Tri-County Athletic League rival later in the evening. Once his players adjusted to the game-like tempo, Hammond said he was encouraged by the strides his team made “playing at that speed.”
“I’m really proud of our guys,” the Gilroy head coach said. “We did good pass-blocking. We did really good. We were real aggressive and got to the ball.”
“We’re getting there,” junior defender Michael Cano said. “We’ve got a lot of bumps and we’ve got to fix a lot of stuff, but by the first game I think we’ll be there.”
Asked what he thought his team would take as the most important lesson from the scrimmage, running back Gonzales said: “Start earlier, play a full game. Bring it from the beginning and play the whole game.”
Gilroy will have its first chance to do just that when Burlingame comes to town on Sep. 1.
