One win from reaching a CCS title game for the first time in
school history. One win from a potential rematch with archrival
Hollister.
And of course
…
One win from reaching a CCS title game for the first time in school history. One win from a potential rematch with archrival Hollister.
And of course …
One big roadblock standing in the way.
When the clock strikes three this afternoon, the Gilroy High football team will take the field at San Jose City College looking to do something no other Mustang team has done before.
To get to that championship game, however, the team first has to go through mighty Oak Grove, the No. 1 seed in the Large Schools’ Division.
The Eagles (9-2) are fresh off a 54-13 whitewashing of Live Oak in the first round. Against the same Acorns who defeated Gilroy the week before, Oak Grove rolled up 419 yards of total offense. The Eagles, co-champions of the Mt. Hamilton division in BVAL, scored 40 unanswered points to end the game.
“They just busted it open,” said GHS head coach Darren Yafai, who was in attendance along with his assistants and about a dozen of the players.
“Live Oak made mistakes on both sides of the ball and they just compounded. Oak Grove didn’t make any mistakes.”
The Eagles rarely do.
Offensively they average 34 points a game and run even more than the Mustangs do. An unscientific survey of the Gilroy defense revealed the No. 1 reason why the Eagles are so successful.
“They’re fast,” defensive tackle Rico Loza said.
“They’ve got speed,” linebacker Joe Cano added.
“Quick,” linebacker Taylor Micali confirmed.
Live Oak’s ability to run behind a big, athletic offensive line is no secret. Jarrid Ferrante (503 yards) is a more-than-capable backup, but there’s no question as to who is the star of the backfield.
As he does in most games, senior tailback Burton Iosefa (5-9, 180) led the way against the Acorns. He scored four touchdowns and ran for 269 yards on just 20 carries.
Like most of his teammates, Iosefa is a speedster.
“If you don’t completely wrap him up,” GHS defensive coordinator Greg Garcia said, “he’s going to take it all the way to the house.”
With his performance against Live Oak, Iosefa moved to the top of his league in both rushing yards (1,717) and touchdowns (23). In both categories, he passed up Independence’s Quentrel Hunter, who was completely shut down by the Gilroy defense in the Mustangs’ 13-6 first-round win over the San Jose school Saturday.
An Independence offense that had been averaging nearly 300 rushing yards a game was held to 68 against the Mustangs. But the Eagles had similar success against the 76ers’ ground game holding Independence to just 89 yards rushing in a 24-0 away win on Oct. 15.
Yafai said the Oak Grove defense ranks amongst the best his team has faced this season.
“They rank right up there with Hollister and Salinas,” he said. “They’re big, tough, mean and they swarm to the football.”
According to Garcia, one of the keys will be the ability of the Gilroy offense to sustain long, time-consuming drives like it did last week against Independence. Before its futile last-ditch drive, the 76ers had touched the ball just twice in the second half.
“If we can sustain those drives again, that will keep the defense rested,” Garcia said. “The intensity is still there for our team. They’re kind of on to this thing about making history. Hopefully we’ll keep it going.”
The history factor hasn’t been brought up as much as it was last week, though. Before the Independence game, Yafai often reminded his team of the program’s 19-year playoff victory drought.
As of Wednesday night, he hadn’t even mentioned the program’s forever-year semifinal victory drought.
“I didn’t even think of mentioning that, because we’re so wrapped up in this game,” Yafai said. “This (Oak Grove) team is so tough and so good that we can’t possibly look ahead to anything.”
So tough. So good. But so unbeatable?
“Is it a huge task? Are we going to have to play incredible football? Yes,” Yafai said. “On any given Friday, though, anybody can get it done.”
The sixth-year coach said the key is to recapture – and combine – some of the magic from the team’s two most memorable wins of the year, both last week’s game and the 29-22 win at Palma Oct. 22.
“That’s what I keep telling the team,” Yafai said. “If we want to beat Oak Grove, we need the offensive effort we had against Palma and the defensive effort we had against Independence. That’ll get it done.
“I know that’s asking a lot, to have the best performances of the year in one game. But I think anything short of that makes it really tough for us.”
