High school football: Los Gatos rolls on the road against Liberty.
After two hours on the team bus, Los Gatos needed a little extra time Sept. 3 to secure a happy ride home. The No. 7 Wildcats scored 31 unanswered points — 24 in the second half — to beat No. 14 Liberty, 38-17.
Through its first two games, Los Gatos can pretty much be summed up as: have team, will travel. And one more thing: will win. Last week, the Wildcats arranged a last-minute contest on the other side of the Santa Cruz mountains and rolled over one of the Sacramento area’s top teams.
“Getting on the bus, we said this is a business trip,” coach Mark Krail said. “To get on the road and take on this Liberty team, that’s pretty good. The second half speaks to our guys.”
Playing its first game of the season, Liberty at first seemed primed to pull off a mild upset.
Nate Bell, the Lions’ electric 5-foot-8 quarterback, led a pair of touchdown drives and set up another field goal while throwing for 205 yards in the first half.
Los Gatos, which forced five turnovers in its win last week, came up empty-handed through two quarters.
But the Lions gave the Wildcats a gift with less than 2 minutes to go in the half, still leading 17-7. Facing fourth down, Liberty called on its punt unit. The snap was low, and punter Tashi Dorje’s knee hit the ground before he booted the ball.
Los Gatos took over at the Liberty 25-yard line and was in the end zone within a few plays, when quarterback Jake Boyd found running back Jaylen Thomas in the flat for the score from eight yards out.
The Lions repeated their special teams mistake on another punt in the second half, setting up a 47yard touchdown bomb from Boyd to senior Quinn Merritt. The touchdown made it 24-17, and Los Gatos never relinquished the lead.
Wil Dal Porto ensured the defense came up with one takeaway in the second half. Bell attempted to find his running back on a wheel route, but Lucas White tipped the pass and Dal Porto came down with it.
“They’re a well-coached team that doesn’t make mistakes, and we made a few,” Liberty coach Matt Hoefs said. “We couldn’t recover.”
Bell used his legs to elude defenders in the backfield — the Wildcats didn’t record a sack — and completed 19 of his 42 pass attempts for 242 yards, all but 37 coming in the first half. He was also the Lions’ leading rusher, with 64 yards, including a 34-yard scramble that set up their first score.
SAN BENITO 22, NO. 18 WILCOX 18 >> Wilcox suffered its second straight loss to open the season when it allowed San Benito to erase a 12-7 deficit with back-to-back touchdowns. San Benito scored a touchdown and made the 2-point conversion for a 15-12 lead at the half, then pushed the advantage to 22-12 with another score in the third quarter. Luther Glenn’s second touchdown of the night, a 50-yard run with about five minutes left, cut the score to the final margin.
CUPERTINO 33, HILL 13 >> Cupertino opened its season Sept. 2 with a victory on the road over Hill, which also was playing its first game. Jayden Hall, a 5-foot8, 155-pound junior, led the way for Cupertino, throwing two touchdown passes and running for two TDS. MENLO 49, THE KING’S ACADEMY 12 >> Menlo looked very impressive for the second week in a row behind senior quarterback Sergio Beltran, who threw five firsthalf touchdown passes. Beltran had seven TD passes in Menlo’s opener last week, a 63-6 clubbing of Sequoia. WILLOW GLEN 14, SARATOGA 0>> Willow Glen evened its record at 1-1 with an impressive defensive performance on its home field on Sept. 2. Junior Cooper Nixon and senior Preston Bursch accounted for the Rams’ touchdowns. Nixon scored on a 42-yard run in the first quarter, with QB Chris Meissner running in a two-point conversion. Nixon finished with 163 yards in 17 carries. Bursch reached the end zone on an 11-yard run in the fourth.
LINCOLN-SAN JOSE 56, SAN JOSE 12 >> Lincoln senior Amari Glass-dillard will never forget the first Labor Day Big Bone game. The 5-foot-7, 225-pound bowling ball was a clear crowd favorite by the roars after touchdown runs of 3 of 32 yards late in the first half, as the Lions (1-0) led by a resounding 49-6 at intermission. But instead of immediately joining his teammates in the locker room, there was the matter of his halftime duties as homecoming king. “It’s surreal,” Glass-dillard said. “It doesn’t even feel real to me.”
LEIGH 41, GILROY 0 >> Aiden Williams threw three touchdown passes to Aiden Goo as the Longhorns stretched their winning streak to seven games dating to the spring with an impressive victory on the road. Leigh built a 27-0 halftime lead and maintained the momentum through the second half to improve to 2-0. Williams finished 23 of 30 passing for 265 yards. He also ran for a TD. Goo caught eight passes for 97 yards. PROSPECT 43, DEL MAR 20 >> Prospect led 31-8 by halftime and racked up 515 total yards of offense over the course of an eventual win, improving to 2-0 this season. Junior QB Kaiden Hoapili completed 11 of 17 passes for 275 yards and four touchdowns, while senior WR Andre Jackson netted triple-digit yardage on the ground (104) and through the air (123).