It wasn’t pretty, but the Haybalers will take it as it
comes.
San Benito defeated visiting Live Oak 23-8 in the Homecoming
game Friday night.
Hollister – It wasn’t pretty, but the Haybalers will take it as it comes.
San Benito defeated visiting Live Oak 23-8 in the Homecoming game Friday night.
The Haybalers (7-1-1, 4-0 TCAL) secured at least a co-league title with Palma, who they play next Friday in Salinas. Live Oak (7-2, 2-2 TCAL) will be at Gilroy next Friday, needing a victory to help their playoff chances.
“Hollister is a good team,” said Live Oak coach Glen Webb. “We had to probe deep to get something going.”
“Live Oak played hard,” said San Benito coach Chris Cameron. “I’m not going to take anything away from them. But we should have scored a lot more points. We didn’t have a real good practice this week, and it showed. We didn’t come out playing crisp. We had too many mistakes.”
Both teams had trouble moving the ball in the first half. The Acorns didn’t have a first down until before the half when they picked up two in the final seconds.
“Our defense did good in the first half, we just couldn’t get anything going,” said Live Oak running back Kevin Abbott.
San Benito put the pressure on defensively all day. Alex Diaz, Vinny Sardam and Kevin Jones got to the quarterback numerous times.
San Benito was up 14-0 at the half. After Nathan Mendoza recovered the second Acorn punt fumble, San Benito got on the board with a 14-yard run by Tim Lango early in the second quarter.
San Benito added a second touchdown with eight seconds before the half on a one-yard run by Chuck Thompson.
The play was set up by a 23-yard acrobatic catch by receiver Alex Gonzalez. Gonzalez had to adjust to an underthrown ball but was still able to make the catch as he dived almost horizontally with the ground while a defender was right with him. One referee called the play incomplete, but the other signaled the catch at the one-yard line was good.
“I got to give the quarterback credit for getting it there,” Gonzalez said. “We changed the call at the line of scrimmage. It was supposed to be just a five-yard play, but I went straight out and made the adjustment to catch it. I had to scraped it off the ground, but I had both hands underneath it.”
The Haybalers came out fired up after halftime and added a 64-yard touchdown run by Thompson.
A 20-yard field goal by Art Esparza in the fourth quarter capped the San Benito scoring.
“We didn’t play well offensively,” Cameron said. “We played OK on defense and special teams. We want to improve every week, but we didn’t do that tonight.”
Live Oak quarterback David Iseman found Jacob Koblis for Live Oak’s touchdown. Iseman completed the two-point conversion to Dustin Muhn with 4:46 left in the game.
Defender Anthony Francis stumbled on the play leaving Koblis wide open for the touchdown, but he had his first interception of the year, picking off a pass in the end zone on Live Oak’s following drive and returning it 30 yards.
“After I slipped, I was just trying to get it out of my head,” Francis said. “I just did what the coaches told me and stepped in front of the receiver.”
Live Oak had a good chance to get on the board in the third quarter after Doug Porras came in to punt but ran for a first down. Live Oak got down to the 16-yard line, but three incomplete passes ended the drive.
“We still got one more victory to go,” Thompson said. “Anything can happen. This one wasn’t pretty, but it was good enough.”
