Two Cougars had the games of their lives and it all came at the expense of Live Oak.
Christopher quarterback Matt Adamkiewicz had 365 yards passing and three touchdowns and runningback Raul Tovar had four touchdowns, including a pick six, to lead CHS in a 48-14 rout of the Acorns.
“We had a really good week of practice and we worked on being exact with our patterns and exact with our drops,” said coach Tim Pierleoni. “Last week, we were a little off on drops and on our patters and our landmarks and things like that. I think it had to do with the kids being their first time out here and the first game of the season. And all week long, that’s what we worked on.”
Christopher controlled nearly all aspects of the game.
Defensively, the Cougars had Live Oak quarterback Erik Ornduff scrambling most of the night. He was sacked five times. Jacob Moen and Jacob Zimmerman each had 1.5 sacks.
“I think our D-line stepped up and knew they had to get into Erik’s face because if he had time, he will make plays because he is that kind of quarterback,” Moen said.
The key, Pierleoni said, came from bottling up Live Oak’s run game.
The Acorn backs were held to 89 yards on the ground, led by Paul Lomanto with 61 yards.
“We were lucky to stop them like we planned and make (Ornduff) have to throw the ball under pressure,” Pierleoni said. “That was the plan, to bring pressure.”
The Cougars forced three turnovers—two interceptions and fumble recovery—and had two fourth down stops.
“It came down to their execution versus our execution and they executed perfectly and we didn’t,” said Live Oak coach Mike Gemo.
Christopher nearly came away with four other interceptions that were dropped.
Had the Cougars come down with the picks, the score may have been worse: each time CHS forced a turnover, it led to a score.
Offensively, the Cougars scored on six of their nine possessions and all of their damage in the air.
Adamkiewicz was 22 of 35 for 365, three touchdowns and no interceptions.
“That was the best I’ve seen Matt play in my life,” Moen said. “He had a great game.”
Even so, he couldn’t pass up the night that Tovar had on both sides of the ball.
“Not to take anything away from Matt, but Raul was killing it on offense and a force to be reckoned with on defense,” Moen said.
The run game amassed 25 yards on the ground, but 20 of those yards came from Tovar who punched the ball in from short distance three times.
“I felt we were going to play really well tonight,” Pierleoni said. “I told the kids all week long, ‘we’re going to play better, we’re going to play better, we’re going to play better.’ I think they really believed in that.”
Although Live Oak bottled up Christopher’s run game, the Acorns didn’t have an answer for the air attack. Blown coverages and missed tackles plagued the Live Oak defense for the entire night.
Just twice did the Acorns bottle up Christopher. Once was when the Cougars went primarily run, which led to a turnover on downs. The second time was when Adamkiewicz couldn’t connect with receivers as Live Oak’s backs broke up four plays.
The only other non-scoring drive came when time expired in the first half.
But for all that went right for the Cougars, they were far from perfect.
Live Oak’s second TD of the night came thanks to four personal foul penalties within four plays. That included two late hits that pushed Live Oak up field. The other two came on two penalties from the same player on the same play. One was negated because of retaliation from Live Oak.
All of that led up to Ornduff hitting Lomanto from 19 yards out to cut the deficit in half at 28-14 with 5:35 to play in the third quarter.
Christopher got on the board on its first possession when Adamkiewicz led a seven-play, 61-yard drive, capped off with a 17-yard strike to Anthony Sammut.
Sammut caught five passes for 110 yards.
Live Oak responded with a 58-yard drive that led to Ornduff hitting Brandon Sorce for a 22-yard touchdown 10 seconds into the second quarter.
After both sides traded failed fourth down conversions, Tovar scored the first of his four TDs on a five-yard rush where he pushed nearly the entire Acorn defense into the endzone for a 14-7 lead.
On Live Oak’s first play from scrimmage following the touchdown, Tovar picked off Ornduff and ran it back 15 yards for a score. That put Christopher up 21-7, where things stood going into halftime.
“I saw the linemen coming at me, so I ran up where the receiver should have been,” Tovar said.
He said it all came down to film preparation and executing how the coaches drew it up.
Christopher gifted Live Oak a chance to get back into the game when the Cougars fumbled the second half kickoff, giving the Acorns the ball on the CHS 29.
The drive, however, stalled at the 28 and Christopher turned the momentum in its favor when Adamkiewicz hit Max Sanford for a 15-yard strike and a 28-7 lead.
Live Oak cut the lead in half on the ensuing possession and got a stop on Christopher’s next drive.
But the Acorns were held to a three and out, punting the ball back to the Cougars, who didn’t let the opportunity go away.
The Cougars drive 55 yards with Tovar punching it in from one yard out.
Adamkiewicz nearly had what would have been his fourth TD of the game when he threw a pass to Alax Pacheco who appeared to cross the plain of the goal line when he stretched out his arm as he was being tackled. The offcials, however, ruled him down on the 1 setting up Tovar’s score.
Adamkiewicz made the game 41-14 later in the fourth quarter when he hit Sanford a second time, this time from 20 yards out.
Christopher wrapped up its scoring when Tovar scored from three yards out after Bryant Huynh intercepted Ornduff and nearly ran it back for a score.
Live Oak must now regroup and prepare to travel to Santa Teresa at 1:45 p.m. Sept. 20.
Gemo said he wants to take a look at the video from Friday and find out just what went wrong and get the boys hitting the practice field ready for a tough Mt. Hamilton League opponent.
Christopher, meanwhile, will hit the road for the first time this season, traveling to Carmel Sept. 20 for a 2 p.m. game.
