Balers secondary will be tested tonight against pass-happy
Piedmont High School
When the No. 1 seeded San Benito High football team takes on No.
8 seed Piedmont Hills tonight at home in the opening round of the
Central Coast Section playoffs, Baler head coach Chris Cameron will
have his defense focusing on one main objective: stopping the
Pirates’ passing game.
Balers secondary will be tested tonight against pass-happy Piedmont High School
When the No. 1 seeded San Benito High football team takes on No. 8 seed Piedmont Hills tonight at home in the opening round of the Central Coast Section playoffs, Baler head coach Chris Cameron will have his defense focusing on one main objective: stopping the Pirates’ passing game.
“They throw all the time,” said Cameron, who has been studying film all week long. “They throw about 99 percent of the time, like there’s no tomorrow. They might have 75 or 80 plays a game and they’ll throw the ball 65 to 70 times.”
That’s a huge contrast to the play calling that the Balers face each week in the Tri County Athletic League – a league where most teams run the ball upwards of 80 percent of the time.
“We’ve been working a lot this week on pass coverage and pass defense,” Cameron said. “We’re also going to have to move the football when we have the ball, and be able to hang onto it.”
Cameron went on to say that he plans on giving the Piedmont’s offense a variety of different looks and rush patterns. He hopes that the use of multiple defensive formations will confuse the Pirates one-dimensional offense.
During the regular season the Pirates finished with a 5-5 record playing in the Blossom Valley Athletic League’s Mount Hamilton division. San Benito High posted an 8-2 record during the regular season, finishing a game back of Palma in the race to a TCAL title.
Although Piedmont’s offense is predictable, it does have a number of athletes that can make a play and quickly light up the scoreboard. One of them is wide receiver Kyle McCarthy, who leads the CCS in catches with 74. He also has 11 touchdowns.
“They have some big players and big play receivers,” Cameron said. “We need to take care of that. Five or six deep balls in the course of a game can lead to some problems.”
The player that will be throwing all of those passes is quarterback Danny Cruz, who has 2,300 passing yards this season to go along with his 23 touchdown tosses. In addition to McCarthy, Cruz likes to hook up with wide receivers Joe Follen and Alex Diaz.
“We run a four receiver set and we’ll be in the shotgun the whole game,” Piedmont coach Matt Kiesle said. “We try and spread the field as much as we can.”
“Most of the time they don’t even have any [blockers] in the backfield,” Cameron said.
Although those formations have worked well enough to propel the Pirates into the playoffs, it could be costly tonight against a well-coached and well-balanced Baler team that will be able to hone in on the passing game. Without a single running back in the backfield, Cameron will be able to focus all of his coaching efforts on pressuring the quarterback and/or dropping extra players back into the secondary for added coverage.
That might not bode well for Cruz, who has been prone to throwing interceptions when heavily pressured. Although his numbers this season have been impressive, Cruz has thrown 16 picks, a statistic that should put a smile on the faces of the swarming Baler secondary and line-backing core.
“Most of those interceptions occurred in the first half of the season though,” Kiesle said. “He’s played really great in the second half of the season for us. Down the stretch he had a couple of four-TD games for us.”
On the rare occasions when Cruz is not passing the ball down field, look for running backs Bobby Mathews and Devon Mynhier to get a handful of carries – but not much more than that.
“We’re going to try and protect the quarterback and run the football when we can,” Kiesle said. “We’ve gotten behind a few times recently so we have thrown more. We’ll need to play good defense too. Hollister is big and physical. We’re definitely going to have to play some D to beat them.”
One thing is certain, the Balers can play defense, which could make the Pirates’ desire to light up the scoreboard more difficult than solving a Rubik’s Cube with a blindfold on. This season, the stingy Baler defense has given up just 198 yards a game while allowing an average of just 13.5 points a contest.
Much of the reason behind San Benito’s success this year has been the result of balance on both sides of the ball.
Offensively, the Balers go-to guy this year has been senior running back Tim Lango, who has rushed for 952 yards this season and 9 touchdowns.
On defense the Balers are led by a core of solid performers, including Zach Canez, who has reeled in 6 interceptions; Johnny Sanchez, who leads the team in tackles with 91; and players like Nate Mendoza and Kevin Burley, who have shown a prowess form pressuring opposing quarterbacks this season. Mendoza leads the team in sacks with 4.5 and Burley has 4 to his credit.
Another advantage that the Balers will have is one that hasn’t been talked too much about and that is the playing surface itself. Piedmont Hills plays its games on a well-drained artificial surface while the Balers play on a traditional grass field.
“With the recent rains it is real wet, too,” said Cameron on Monday. “We have a lot of standing water out there right now. That’s going to slow their receivers down and make things more difficult for them, which will be an advantage to us.”
The 50-mile trek down to Hollister won’t be a first for the Pirates. And if history repeats itself, losing to San Benito won’t be a first either.
“We’re 0-3 going down there,” Kiesle said. “We lost to them in 1992, ’96 and 2001, I believe. Our history dates back the days before Chris (Cameron) was there. I’ve known Chris for a long time. We both went through the same P.E. program at San Jose State. He runs one of the great public school programs in the section, and his team is the No. 1 seed for a reason. We are in this tournament to win a championship too. We knew that if we were going to get there that at some point we would have to face them anyway, so we might as well get it out of the way now. We definitely plan on leaving everything on that field tonight.”
Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
