GILROY—A new home needs a good security system—and that’s where the Christopher defense comes in.
The Cougars D forced six Sobrato turnovers in their 12-6 win in the inaugural game at the Don Christopher Sports Complex Friday.
“It wasn’t as pretty as we’d liked because Sobrato’s a pretty darn good team,” Cougar coach Tim Pierleoni said. “You’re not going to roll over everybody. I thought our kids played with a bunch of heart; I saw them comeback a bunch of times when maybe we were questioning ourselves a little bit. …I think that’s the thing we have to take out of this is that the kids didn’t give up.”
Senior cornerback and wide receiver Bryant Huynh was at the helm for two of the turnovers, grabbing two interceptions in the game. The first came with just over five to play in the third quarter to swing the momentum back in his team’s favor. The Cougars would score on their next drive—a 10-play march down field that ended with with an 11-yard touchdown from Matt Adamkiewicz to Pj Reichert—and go up 12-0.
But the most highlight worthy play of the night was the 5-7 Cougar’s pick in the endzone, defusing what could’ve been the game-changing play for Sobrato.
“Our defense just came out playing football—that’s it. They played with heart and we picked up the offensive slack,” Huynh said. “I was just ecstatic when I got that (pick); I didn’t know what to do. I just played football.”
Sobrato would get on the board just a couple minutes later and once again Christopher’s defense stole the momentum back. Bulldog QB Matthew Bolino connected with Jacob Hutchinson for a 10-yard touchdown, but the Cougars’ Jacob Moen was there to block the extra point—all 6-4, 240 pounds of him.
“I just knew that we couldn’t let them gain the momentum, we’ve got to keep it as more of a balanced game. I knew we needed that block, so I had to go get it,” Moen, who was also celebrating his birthday said. “It is a good birthday present, probably the best I’ve gotten in a few years.”
It wasn’t just the Christopher defense that shined, however, Sobrato’s made quite an impression, too. The Bulldogs came up with two interceptions of their own and forced a fumble. While the score didn’t end up in their favor, it’s a drastic improvement from last year’s 36-6 season opening loss to the Cougars.
“I feel defensively we did really good things and created three turnovers, but offensively we gave away six,” Sobrato coach Albert King said. “Christopher is a good team and they’re a very well coached team—you can’t give a team like that six extra opportunities.”
Sal Naranjo led the Bulldogs defense, while Brandon Purcell made his presence known on both sides of the ball along with Dylan Longaker on the O-line.
Purcell said he’s happy with the way his teammates performed, especially for their abilities to be in the right places at the right times.
“On defense we can say we did pretty good by holding them to 12 points when last year we had 34 or 39 on average,” he said. “…It’s a little sad that we couldn’t end their first game as a loss, but I feel like we can go home and have the same mentality they had out here and bring it to our first game (at home).”
Offensively, the Bulldogs picked up 105 yards in the air. Bolino was 9 for 16 with three interceptions and one touchdown.
Pierleoni said the plan was to limit Sobrato’s run game and Christopher did a good job executing it. The Bulldogs accumulated just 72 yards on the ground, 38 of which came from senior Jacob Whitworth.
Cougars QB Adamkiewicz went 20 for 36 for 213 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions in his varsity debut. Anthony Sammut had seven catches for 93 yards, while Alex Pacheco had three for 38—including the game’s first TD for 17 yards with 2:55 remaining in the second quarter.
Raul Tovar led the team in rushing with 20 carries for 77 yards and the team combined for 152 on the ground in the game.
While the defense helped make-up for the offense’s shortcomings this game, Pierleoni said it needs to see a dramatic improvement before hosting Live Oak at 7:30 p.m. next Friday.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, like I told these guys, it’s a lot more fun to get on that work when you’re 1-0 than it is when you’re 0-1. We’re happy about that,” Pierleoni said. “… We’ve got to limit the mistakes: we drew some penalties tonight and threw some interceptions. Those are things we’ve got to do and we’ve got to be able to run the ball—we’re going to work on running that thing.”
Sobrato will play its own inaugural home game when it hosts Gilroy at 1:45 p.m. next Saturday, Sept. 13.
King, who has been at the school for six years, said playing home has been a long time coming and he’s grateful the Bulldogs will finally get the chance to do so. But, they can’t let it distract them from picking up a win against the Mustangs.
“From a football perspective, we have to clean up our mistakes. The only team we’re going to be a viable team—a team that’s going to compete—is if we clean up those mistakes,” King said. “I think with our defense showed that we’re capable of doing a lot of good things. …Hopefully Sobrato can get on the winning streak and it’ll be a great start for us at home.”
