SAN JOSE — San Benito High football coach Chris Cameron started jumping up and down and yelling “Yes” even before Haybalers fullback Justice Felice received the handoff.
Moments later, Felice scored on a 13-yard run, and the Haybalers were on their way to a 31-14 win over host Pioneer on Friday in the season opener for both teams. San Benito’s victory was even more impressive considering the fact that it trailed 14-4 at halftime.
“We just needed to settle down,” Cameron said, referring to his team committing ill-advised penalties that negated a couple of potential touchdowns in the first half. “We did some things really well (in the second half), and they had no answer for it.”
San Benito’s running game was simply unstoppable in the final two quarters, with Felice (15 carries for 106 yards) leading the way. His aforementioned 13-yard touchdown run — which cut San Benito’s deficit to 14-11 — nonetheless set the tone for the rest of the game, as it came on the opening drive of the third quarter.
On the possession, the Balers ran nine plays that covered 79 yards — on all runs — starting a flurry that saw San Benito score the game’s final 27 points. With the offensive line opening up huge holes, the Balers gashed Pioneer for 267 yards on the ground.
San Benito ran 28 plays in the second half, 26 of which were runs. The Balers basically ran four plays off their run game: A dive, toss, option and option keeper. They adjusted their blocking schemes at halftime, and the result was noticeable.
“We just needed to play better – it was that simple,” Felice said. “With this being the first game, I was a little nervous at first, and maybe I wasn’t moving my feet as well as I should have like the coaches told me to.”
The Balers scored on every possession in the second half, except the final one when they ran out the clock. They took their first lead since the opening minutes of the first quarter on David Stanton’s 5-yard touchdown run, making it 17-14 with 2:24 left in the third quarter.
Chris Blake added a 9-yard TD run and Stanton — who also completed 5-of-14 passes for 119 yards — capped the scoring with a 13-yard run. That came one play after teammate Andrew Sotelo returned an interception 25 yards to the Pioneer 13-yard line.
San Benito’s defense was stout, limiting the Mustangs to 244 yards of total offense. The Balers’ only points of the first half came courtesy of their defense, via safeties.
Cody McGrew blocked a Pioneer punt out of the end zone for the Balers’ first safety, and Ben Cobb recorded San Benito’s second safety when he tackled Pioneer quarterback Zach Silva in the end zone in the opening minute of the second quarter.
“Some of our guys could have tanked, but what you saw was a group who played really hard,” Cameron said. “Hopefully we flushed some of our mistakes out of our system, and we’ll play a bit cleaner next week.”
