No. 1 San Benito opens against No. 8 Piedmont Hills
Hollister – The road to what hopes to be a second straight Central Coast Section Large School Division football championship begins at 7pm today when No. 1 seed San Benito plays host to No. 8 Piedmont Hills in a first-round showdown.
While a defense of last year’s title is certainly the ‘Balers goal, it hasn’t been among the topics of conversation throughout the season.
“We talked about it before the first game of the season, but we haven’t talked about it since,” coach Chris Cameron said.
For he and San Benito know that a title last year and a top seed this year don’t mean anything once the game starts.
The Pirates, who went 5-5 overall and 4-3 while finishing in a tie for third place in the Blossom Valley Athletic League Mount Hamilton Division, had an extremely up and down season.
In a two-week span midway through the season, Piedmont narrowly beat winless Independence 15-10 and then lost a close 21-14 decision to unbeaten Oak Grove, the top seed in the Open Division playoffs.
The Pirates also had an impressive 34-7 win over second-place Leigh.
A pass-first team, Piedmont’s top rusher finished with less than 300 yards. Senior quarterback Danny Cruz averaged 234.3 passing yards per game with 23 touchdowns. In his last three games he threw for a combined 1,041 yards – including 406 in a 48-40 loss to Lincoln – and had four TD throws in each of those game.
Senior wide receiver Alex McCarthy proved to be a lethal threat, catching 74 passes for 1,026 yards and nine touchdowns.
“We’ve got to stop those guys,” Cameron said. “Those guys can strike quickly at any time.”
Cameron expects turnovers to play a big role in the game, especially if field conditions turn sloppy.
“The conditions are going to have an effect,” he said. “Turnovers may play maybe an even bigger role in the game than normal.”
While the defense will be relied on to slow down the Pirates’ passing attack, the offense will be counted on to keep Piedmont off the field.
“Something that’s really important is to move the football,” Cameron said. “We have to score and score often.”
After a strong performance in last week’s Prune Bowl win over Gilroy, where the offense perfected several new packages, it seems to be up to the challenge and will try to enjoy the advantage of mixing thing up again.
“It makes it harder for them to stop all of our weapons,” senior fullback Tim Lango said of the effectiveness of adding packages to the offense. “When we give them different looks, they’re not ready for us.”
