One play for a share of a Coast Conference Championship.
Aptos – One play for a share of a Coast Conference Championship.
That honor was at stake Saturday night for the Gavilan Rams when that one play, with Gavilan on the Cabrillo 4-yard line facing a fourth-and-goal call with eight seconds left in the game, unfolded with the Seahawks holding a 19-13 advantage.
Star wide-out Ellis Krout, having kept the 18-play, 79-yard march to a winning touchdown alive with a leaping grab of a 34-yard Will Kilday pass on a fourth-and-19 call on the Cabrillo 42, was up to the task.
Facing man-to-man coverage from Cabrillo’s Michael Norteye, Krout sped to the right corner of the end zone and calmly pulled in Kilday’s make-or-break toss to tie the game at 19-19 with 3.8 seconds left.
When Erik Cifuentes drilled the game-winning PAT, Gavilan emerged with a 20-19 win and a 3-1 conference record, tying Cabrillo and Monterey Peninsula College atop the five-team loop.
MPC earned the right to represent the Coast Conference in a bowl game after tie-breaker rules were applied. The Lobos defeated the highest-ranked team, #19 Solano, in Northern California rankings. Neither Cabrillo nor Gavilan posted a win over a ranked team.
“This was huge,” coach John Lango said of a share of the conference championship. “We were written off early when we had such a poor start (1-5 pre-conference record). We as coaches preached all season for the guys to stay as a family and keep working. We just played hard (against Cabrillo). We weathered their punches. This showed the resiliency of our players.”
Gavilan powered to a 388-241 edge in total offense against the Seahawks, netting 21 first downs to 14 for the hosts.
The Rams fashioned a 13-6 halftime advantage, although a larger lead seemed inevitable when Gavilan reached the Cabrillo 5 with time left for two plays in the closing seconds of the second quarter. The Rams were stopped at the 1 as time expired.
“That could have haunted us,” Lango said of the final play of the half. “Instead, the players all said that things were OK and we’d rebound in the second half.”
The Rams opened the scoring with 12:09 left in the second quarter when Tim Abbott caught a 13-yard touchdown pass from Kilday. Abbott finished with six catches covering 74 yards. Cifuentes’ PAT try was blocked, leaving Gavilan up 6-0.
Cabrillo, carrying a 6-3 record into play, countered with a 47-yard TD pass from Harlan Prather to Cameron Weber. Matt Kiel’s PAT kicked missed to leave the score tied with 10:26 to play in the half.
Gavilan used a five-play, 53-yard march to score a go-ahead touchdown with 8:44 left in the second quarter. Matt Perkins, on the way to 79 yards on 28 carries, bolted over from eight yards out and Cifuentes added the PAT for a 13-6 edge.
Cabrillo controlled much of the third quarter and posted the lone points of the 15-minute session when Weber blocked an Anthony Vasquez punt and Norteye returned the loose ball 13 yards for a touchdown with 13:11 to play in the quarter. Kiel’s point-after tied the score.
The Seahawks grabbed a 19-13 lead with 11:56 left in the contest. Prather ran a quarterback draw covering four yards to paydirt. Kiel’s extra-point kick banged off the left upright, leaving Cabrillo clinging to a 19-13 lead.
After Krout’s circus catch earned a first down at the Seahawk 8, a roughing the passer call pushed the ball to the 4. Without a time-out available, Gavilan spiked the ball on first down, then came up empty on a second-down run. The Rams hurried to spike to ball on third down, leading to the all-or-nothing call.
Kilday, a sophomore, went 24-for-34 for 307 yards to spark the Gavilan offense. Krout finished with 146 yards on 11 catches. Jermey Burns managed three catches for 34 yards and Brad Cintas added a clutch 33-yard catch.
“Matt continued to run the ball hard,” Lango said of his top rusher. Lango lauded the work of guards Phil Leonard and Ty Doty on sweeps called for Perkins.
