Gilroy gridmen turn ball over five time sin 37-7 loss to
Hollister in Annual Prune Bowl
HOLLISTER – The Mustang gridmen could not ask for a better start to Friday night’s Prune Bowl battle in Hollister as senior quarterback Ben Hemeon hit junior Z-back Louie Gutierrez for an 81-yard touchdown bomb and a quick 7-0 lead.
But what followed for the Gilroy High football team could not have been much worse as the garlic boys turned the ball over five times – losing three of four fumbles and throwing two interceptions. As a result, the Haybalers will keep the VFW Trophy in Hollister for a second straight season – handing the Mustangs a 37-7 loss.
“Bad calls and just a lot of mistakes on our part. We fumbled the ball on crucial moments,” senior defensive back Jimmy Miller said. “Actually, the game wasn’t as bad as the score really was. We were in the game. We just had a lot of bad calls. The score makes it worse than in actually is. It’s crazy. It’s the Prune Bowl. We should have won that.”
The surprise lopsided affair did not sit well with the Gilroy players, who left their hearts and tears on the field, as well as the coaching staff – which saw three touchdowns nullified by an official’s call.
“We turned it over a million times and that just kills you,” said head coach Darren Yafai, who felt his players got the raw end of the stick all night long. “In 13 plus years of coaching high school football, I’ve never once told the press that the officiating was horrible and tonight is going to be my first because that officiating was horrendous.”
At the same time that Yafai did not want to put all the blame on the officials and wanted to give the Haybalers their due, he could not hold back from commenting on some judgment calls that never went Gilroy’s way.
“We shot ourselves in the foot and the referees didn’t help things out,” Yafai said. “The officials didn’t lose the ball game for us. We lost the game, but it sure as heck contributed to the lopsided score and to us losing a bunch of momentum.”
“I don’t want to take anything away from Hollister because they’re a great football team. I have a lot of respect for them and their coaches. They’re well-coached. They’ve got a lot of heart,” he added. “This Hollister team could win straight on through.”
After Gilroy’s initial strike, the Haybalers scored 37 unanswered points – including three touchdown passes of 29, 40 and 24 yards by sophomore quarterback Karson Klauer. Senior Chris Uribe scored on a 24-yard TD run, tailback Mike Sevin walked in from two yards out and place-kicker Martin Chapa added a 23-yard field goal to cap off the Hollister assault.
“I’m hurting big-time,” Yafai said. “I don’t worry about scores. I worry about wins and losses. Whether it was 37-7 or whether it was 8-7, we still lost the game and we still didn’t do the things that it takes to get a win – which hurts.”
With Gilroy trailing 10-7 in the second quarter, Gutierrez rambled into the end zone from 54 yards for his second touchdown of the game. But the play was called back due to a holding infraction for the first of several calls questioned by Yafai and his staff.
“We run a long run for a touchdown. They call a mystery holding penalty,” said Yafai, who could not get a jersey number from the official following the holding call.
On the same drive, the Mustangs continued to move the ball down inside the Hollister five-yard line when another call didn’t go their way. Gutierrez ran a sweep to the right side and thought he was in until the official called him down on the one-yard line. The next play, senior tailback Melvin Bryant (12 carries for 44 yards) took a hand-off and dove towards the goal-line – only to have the ball stripped away and recovered by the Haybalers. The Gilroy coaches felt Bryant broke the plain before the fumble and should have gotten the touchdown.
“Two successive plays in that first half we score touchdowns. They had everybody down in that corner saying Louie was in on the fly sweep. He said, ‘Coach, I even landed inside the pylon.’ They rule him out on the one-foot line,” Yafai said. ” Next play, Melvin gets in. He says, ‘Coach, I was in and I was reaching the ball out to make sure it was in. I’m starting to fall. They swat the ball out of my hands. I land in the end zone as they’re swatting the ball out of my hands.’ They rule it a fumble and move the ball back to the one.”
Instead of Gilroy recapturing the lead, Hollister went on a 99-yard scoring drive capped off by Uribe’s touchdown run on a reverse to extend to a 17-7 advantage, going into the break.
The Haybalers made it 10-7 earlier on a second-chance field goal – where the Gilroy coaches again did not agree with the official’s decision to flag them for running into the kicker. Yafai said his player was blocked into the kicker and, therefore, the flag should have been picked up. It was not and Chapa made his second attempt.
“I’ve never heard our coaching staff like this after a game even bring up officiating,” Yafai said.
In the second half, Gilroy’s misfortunes continued on its opening drive as Bryant tossed an interception in the end zone on a halfback option pass to end a threat. Hollister took full advantage as Klauer completed the ensuing drive with a 40-yard TD pass for a 24-7 lead.
“We’re not going to win a game, regardless of officiating or not, if we fumble the ball and run wrong routes and miss tackles and block the wrong guy. We were getting frustrated because we’re like guys we practiced all week why are you lined up incorrectly,” Yafai said. “We had a lot of mental mistakes tonight. We have smart kids and wonderful kids that we love, but we had a lot of mental mistakes tonight where we were like why did you do that?”
The Haybalers put the nail in the coffin with a 11-play, 68-yard scoring drive that ended with Klauer’s third touchdown pass of the game. Two plays later, Hemeon – who completed only two passes after hitting Gutierrez on the opening drive to finish 3-of-11 – was picked off by Hollister defensive back Anthony Vasquez. The Haybalers turned the ball right back over on their only fumble – but Gilroy was forced to punt after a quick three-and-out series.
Hollister (5-1-1) finished off the Prune Bowl with Sevin’s two-yard touchdown run with 7:39 remaining.
“(We have to) hold our heads up and keep it together,” Miller said. “Hopefully, we see them in the playoffs.”
Gilroy (4-2-1) dropped its second straight league game and is without a win in three weeks. The competition only gets tougher in T-CAL with the Mustangs hosting private power Palma on Halloween Night at 7:30.
“Palma is a great team, but I think if we don’t hurt ourselves, we can play with them,” said Yafai, whose squad is 0-2 in T-CAL after four non-league wins. “The teams that we play in non-league compare in no way, shape or form to the teams of the T-CAL.”
“We were excited (after starting 4-0) and everybody was excited, but as a staff and a football program we were keeping things in perspective in that we had not played anybody yet,” the coach added. “There’s a reason why Hollister contends for a section championship every year and Salinas, who we lost to last week, is the defending league champs and won the CCS title two years ago. Now we’ve got Palma coming up who wins CCS titles left and right.”
JV/FROSH SUCCESS: The Gilroy High junior varsity football team son its seventh straight game with Friday’s 22-14 win over Hollister, while the freshmen team won a 33-10 decision on Thursday behind three touchdowns from Z-back Paul Gonzalez – who ran back the opening kickoff for his first score.
SECOND UNIT REPS: The Mustang reserve players got a chance to play into Friday night’s varsity Prune Bowl game. Junior quarterback Peter Mickartz did not complete a pass on two attempts, but did have a long run of 15 yards. Junior tailback Ed Rodriguez ran for eight yards on two carries and senior fullback Vince Sanchez had a two-yard run.
