Mustang defense dominates in second half of 14-7 home win over
Santa Cruz
GILROY – Defense was the name of the game for the Gilroy High football team in Friday night’s non-league dogfight against Santa Cruz inside Mustang Stadium. Holding on to a slim touchdown lead, the Mustang defense stopped four Cardinal drives in the fourth quarter alone to preserve a hard-fought 14-7 home victory.
“Everyone on defense we all wanted it. We all wanted this. They came out and they said they were going to run on us. We proved them wrong. We stopped them,” said senior Korey Gray, who had a sack. “If we can play like this every game, we can go a long ways. We’ve got a good defense.”
First, the Mustang offense clawed its way back in the second half to take the lead behind two field goals from sophomore place-kicker Neil Martin and a 39-yard go-ahead touchdown pass from senior quarterback Ben Hemeon to senior tailback Melvin Bryant. Then, the garlic ‘D’ put the clamps down and for the second straight week prevented their opponents from finding the end zone.
“Basically, we just went into the locker room and had to take a good look at ourselves. We weren’t playing too good in the first half,” Gray said. “We just had to come out strong. All of us had to look deep down inside and come out with that (intensity).”
On their opening drive of the fourth quarter, the Cardinals started at the 50-yard line – but were forced to punt after only three plays. Gilroy, however, punted the ball right back and Santa Cruz’s Brett Miller broke one – returning the punt to the Mustang 12-yard line.
The Cardinals (1-1) then gained 10 yards on the first two plays for a first-and-goal from the two-yard line. That’s when the Gilroy defense made a stand:
•On first down, senior defensive lineman Nick Mason stopped the run for no gain.
•On second down, Santa Cruz quarterback Will Wetmore went incomplete on a lob pass attempt to tight end Nic Tom in the corner of the end zone.
•On third down, senior linebacker Danny Melendez pressured Wetmore for a loss of three yards.
•On fourth down from the five, Santa Cruz went for a halfback option pass that was snuffed out by the Mustang defense.
“That was huge,” said head coach Darren Yafai of the goal-line stand.
Field position still played a major role as the Gilroy offense could not get to the first down marker – punting the ball away from its own 13-yard line and having it fly out-of-bounds at only the 34-yard line.
Still trailing by seven points, Santa Cruz went to work with four minutes remaining. After a 15-yard pass moved the ball to the 19-yard line, the Gilroy defense stuffed the run on first down and then senior cornerback Peter Daluz intercepted a Wetmore pass in the back of the end zone.
With some breathing room at their own 20-yard line, the Mustangs began to move the ball and drain the clock – which dipped under three minutes. Junior tailback Marty Sustaita got things going with a four-yard run followed by Hemeon’s 17-yard scramble and then Bryant’s 18-yard gallop that pushed the ball across mid-field.
After two more Bryant rushes of two and 13 yards, Santa Cruz stopped the clock with 21 ticks left. Instead of kneeling the ball, Gilroy went to Bryant one more time. But after he covered 18 yards on the ground, the ball was stripped from him and Santa Cruz had one more life. It was a call that offensive coordinator Tim Pierleoni later regretted.
This time, however, the Cardinals were starting from their own 13-yard line. The Gilroy defense remained impenetrable – allowing only nine yards before an incomplete pass on fourth down ended the contest.
“We’re all family. Last year, we were all spread out. This year, we’re united,” Gray said. “We’re going to try to play with the same momentum all the way. We’re going to try to go 10-0.”
Up next for the Mustangs (2-0) is a week-three road game against perennial power San Lorenzo Valley – which has uncharacteristically started the season 0-2 with losses to St. Ignatius and North County.
“It feels good, but SLV’s going to be the best team we see. For us, all it does it get harder every week. If we win next week, we’ll turn some heads. We’ll be the underdog, obviously,” Yafai said. “We keep saying we’re really young, but our kids have a lot of heart and sometimes they don’t know they’re young.”
After the Cardinals opened the scoring in the first quarter on senior running back Jason Paris’s 21-yard touchdown scamper, Martin kicked two field goals – one from 21 yards out before the half and the second from 27 yards out to close the gap to 7-6 in the third quarter.
Hemeon (10-of-22, 143 passing yards, TD) gave Gilroy its first lead with 2:38 left in the third quarter – hitting Bryant in stride on an inside seam route for a 39-yard touchdown pass. Hemeon then hit senior tight end Roger Ortiz for a successful two-point conversion.
In week-two, Bryant showed that he is the complete package – rushing for 106 yards on 15 carries, catching four passes for 58 yards, and even completing a 33-yard half-back option pass to sophomore receiver Jordan Newton (three grabs, 56 yards) on the first play of the game. With Bryant split out as a receiver, Sustaita added another weapon in the backfield – using his speed to gain 35 yards on six carries.
“Marty Sustaita made some plays. He’s the fastest kid on our team,” Yafai said. “Then we get Melvin and we control the ball down the field with Melvin. We throw it out to the flats to him. And you get Marty back there and you can toss it to him a little bit here and there.”
THE NUMBER GAME: The Mustangs had numbers on their side – almost doubling the amount of players on their roster than that of Santa Cruz. Yafai and the coaching staff knew their team would be stronger down the stretch.
“We have a lot of depth and they don’t,” Yafai said. “The key is we platoon and everyone on their team goes both ways. We told our kids at halftime, ‘Guys, they’re going to be tired in the second half. They’ve got everybody going both ways.’
“They’re offensive line was mowing us off the ball (in the first half) and we were making some mental mistakes defensively… They came out and they could not run on us in the second half… We were fresh and they were tired. They went from the whole first half pounding us on the ground, picking up eight yards a chunk to the second half where we were stuffing them at the line of scrimmage.”
MORE SUCCESS: The Gilroy High junior varsity squad defeated Santa Cruz by a 35-7 margin on Friday. Sophomore fullback Stefan McCrimmon scored four touchdowns to lead the offense… The Mustang freshmen squad finished in a 20-20 tie with Seaside on Thursday.
