For the Palo Alto Vikings, the unfamiliar scent of overwhelming garlic turned out be an unpleasant one, as with the smell came a powerful Gilroy team that rolled to a 31-10 victory late Friday night. In what was pegged to be an offensive battle featuring two of California’s finest quarterbacks in Jamie Jensen and Will Brandin, both teams’ defenses wholly dominated the game. Paly (2-1) supplied four interceptions and three sacks while Gilroy (3-0) picked off three passes and sacked Brandin more than 10 times.
The Mustangs supplied relentless pressure as Paly’s offensive line struggled with ongoing blitzes and defensive variations. After two unsuccessful drives during which the Viking offensive unit struggled to gain momentum against press coverage with their running game, the Mustangs began to use a heavy pass rush against Brandin. On Paly’s third possession, senior Sam Tompkins-Jenkins ran for five yards before Brandin was sacked on both second and third down, forcing Paly to punt. Paly’s inability to run the ball was demonstrated by Tompkins-Jenkins’ lowly 2.4 yards per carry, as he ran 21 times for 52 yards.
“They came and blitzed in packages,” Tompkins-Jenkins said. “It was really hard to see who to pick up as a lineman and me finding the holes. Every time they rushed like eight guys there weren’t enough blockers for me to break off runs and block for Will [Brandin].”
The Vikings, however, showed a glimmer of energy as they connected on multiple plays and sustained their longest drive of the night late in the second quarter. At about mid-field, a calm and composed Brandin completed a fourth-down pass to senior two-way player Harry Woolsen, bringing the Vikings to the 10-yard line. Then senior kicker Will Holder knocked in a field goal after the drive stalled, putting up Paly 3-0. Brandin would connect on 20 of 38 passes for 214 yards, while also tossing three interceptions.
“Our passing game moved us down the field, but we needed to establish a run game and we didn’t do that,” Hansen said. “Their defense was quick and didn’t miss many tackles.”
Gilroy quickly responded as the Mustangs broke off a long return, giving their star quarterback a short field to work with. This would be the theme of the night as Gilroy’s special teams consistently gave the Mustangs excellent field position, in addition to supplying a touchdown on an 88-yard kickoff return. Behind the arm of Jensen, the Mustangs promptly marched down the field before pushing in for the score.
“Coming into the game we knew that their game play was based on the passing game, so we wanted to take away the deep threats and hopefully hold them to short yardage situations,” senior cornerback Paul Brown said. “I think we just beat ourselves. There were a couple of key plays that we didn’t capitalize on, and a couple of key plays that they did.”
This was certainly the case as the Mustangs only had one pass play longer than 30 yards with starting corners Woolsen and Brown contributing to an excellent effort by the secondary. However, the pass play that did go for more was a beautiful 64-yard strike from Jensen to senior wide receiver Dante Fullard, giving the Mustangs a 14-3 lead. Jensen would eventually complete 14 of 27 passes for 213 yards while throwing four picks. In addition to Brown, three juniors also had interceptions as safety Scott Witte, linebacker Jared Beeson, and two-way player Joc Pederson all made key plays in limiting the Mustang offense to two touchdowns.
“Our kids played really hard tonight,” head coach Earl Hansen said. “We were still playing at the end even when we were down.”
After the Mustangs went up, 14-3, on Fullard’s touchdown, the Vikings sustained a 70-yard drive where Brandin connected on all five of his passes while Tompkins-Jenkins ran five times for 21 yards. Brandin consistently threw to Pederson during the drive as he caught two balls on key third downs. Pederson would eventually finish with seven catches for 107 yards. The drive ended with Tompkins-Jenkins clearing the goal line on a one-yard touchdown dive, bringing the lead down to four.
“Even though I scored, it was rough night to run the ball,” Tompkins-Jenkins said. “Their run stop defense blew me out the water on how good they were to flowing through the blocks and making the tackles.”
About nine seconds later, Paly once again found themselves down by 11, as Mustang senior kick returner Richie Sotelo demonstrated excellent field vision, running 88 yards for the score. This was the beginning of the end for Paly as two drives later Brandin was intercepted by senior cornerback Tony Travis. Travis would run the pick back 102 yards for a score, essentially ending the game. To add insult to injury, the Mustangs would kick one more field goal with time expiring, bringing the final score to 31-10.
“Overall I think it was a closer game then the scoreboard says, we know we could have competed with them but we just didn’t help ourselves win,” Brown said.
The Vikings will try to prove Friday night’s game was a one-time occurrence when they face their cross-town rival Gunn next Friday, Oct. 3. Paly dominated the Titans last year by a score of 49-0, and will look to do so again this coming week.
Click here to view footage from the game.