GILROY—One down, five to go.
Christopher took its first steps towards its goal of winning a league title by pummeling Watsonville 41-7 at home Friday.
“We were chomping at the bit to get out here after two weeks off,” Cougars coach Tim Pierleoni said. “We’ve had two good, hard weeks of practice and we’ve been really working on being precise with our route running, precise with our drops, precise with our reads and I think you could see that tonight.”
“We crushed them today and it was a good game and I have one thing to say: We never lose at our home,” Trenton Pierleoni, the Cougar coach’s 9-year-old son added excitedly.
The Cougars wasted no time getting on the board, scoring 14 points in the opening three minutes of the game.
Christopher opened with a seven-play, 73-yard drive and capped it off with Raul Tovar punching the ball in from the 2-yard-line for the touchdown. Watsonville fumbled on the kick-off, leaving the Cougars to recover on the Wildcatz 29. Christopher needed just two plays to reach the endzone as Matt Adamkiewicz found Max Sanford for a 5-yard TD pass, which put his team up 14-0 with 9:20 left in the first quarter.
“We’ve worked hard all week and coming off the bye was another thing; we didn’t want to lose tempo,” Adamkiewicz said. “We had two good, hard away games and so we knew coming into this first league game that we wanted to set the tone right. We wanted to show who we are.”
Watsonville attempted to punt the ball away on 4th and 14, but mishandled the snap and the 6-4, 240 pound Jacob Moen pounced on the kicker. Christopher wound up with excellent field position, taking over at the Wildcatz’ 9-yard-line.
“We were working on that at practice because we thought that I would have the upper hand in that and I did,” Moen said of the play. “It just worked out and all the coaching paid off.”
The Cougars needed just one play as Tovar ran it in for his second touchdown of the game and the home team went up 21-0.
Tovar led Christopher on the ground with eight carries for 64 yards.
The Cougars were stellar on defense, holding Watsonville to just nine first downs. They gave up just 95 yards rushing and 99 yards in the air.
Watsonville QB Nathaniel Perez was 9 for 19 with and picked up his team’s only TD of the game. The ‘Catz went on an 18-play, 72-yard drive in which they overcame Perez being sacked for a loss by Tovar and capitalized on a pass interference penalty by Christopher. The Watsonville QB hit Austin Gomez for a 6-yard TD with just 26 seconds left in the second, cutting the Cougars lead to 35-7 at the half.
“We all put in 110 percent every play,” Moen said of the defense. “We just want to play defense; everyone out there wants to play defense.”
The offense was just as good and it didn’t need to put up a ton of yardage to get the job done. Adamkiewicz had just four incompletions, going 18 for 22 for 210 yards and four touchdowns. He hit PJ Reichert for a 5-yard score with 3:42 remaining in the first quarter, giving Christopher a 28-0 edge at that point.
Alex Pacheco showed off his 6-4 frame, going up and grabbing an 18-yard pass from Adamkiewicz with 23 seconds left in the third quarter for Christopher’s final score of the game.
Pacheco had two catches for 45 yards and a touchdown. Anthony Sammut also had 44 yards on four receptions and 24 on the ground. He scored a 13-yard rushing touchdown with 10:17 left in the second which put Christopher up 28-0.
Christopher (4-1 overall, 1-0 in league) will celebrate its homecoming next week, with the grand finale being the 7:30 p.m. game Oct. 17 against Monte Vista Christian.
The Mustangs (5-1 overall, 2-0 in league) shutdown Pajaro Valley 39-0 in their Friday night contest. The two teams are considered the best in the Monterey Bay League-Pacific and the league champion could potentially be decided in this game.
Christopher has never beaten MVC, but Tim Pierleoni said his team is looking forward to the challenge.
“We’re excited about playing a good opponent,” the CHS coach said. “We’re going to prepare as hard as we do every week—nothing is going to change. We’re going to keep doing what we do and get ready for a very, very good football team.”
