The last week of the Central Coast Section regular season and the seeding meeting are in the books and now it's on to the playoffs. Here is what we learned from the final week:
SPECIAL TEAMS COUNT
Pioneer defeated Piedmont Hills 34-33 Friday night and won an outright BVAL-Mt. Hamilton title largely because of two special teams plays.
Junior cornerback Tim Geraghty blocked a pair of extra points to provide the margin of victory for the Mustangs.
Earlier, Pioneer almost gave the game away, kicking off long to Piedmont Hills' Howard Butler with less than a minute left in the first half, prompting Butler to return the ball 98 yards for a touchdown.
"Little things can do that to you," Piedmont Hills coach Matt Kiesle said. "High snaps and a breakdown in protection. We had our opportunities to get one in later and we just didn't pull it off."
GAMES AREN'T WON ON PAPER
Milpitas looked like the favorite against Los Gatos in the SCVAL-De Anza finale, but the Wildcats surprised the Trojans 55-34. The turn of events made Milpitas, Wilcox and Los Gatos tri-champs.
University of San Diego-bound Los Gatos quarterback Nick Bawden completed 15 of 24 passes for 207 yards and three touchdowns. Joey Wood rushed 25 times for 111 yards and one TD. But the real star of the night was Corey Olivet who caught six passes for 136 yards and two touchdowns, rushed seven times for 55 yards and one TD, returned a punt 36 yards, had three tackles and intercepted two passes.
"We're playing better each week," Los Gatos coach Mark Krail said. "We had some good wins at the end of the season against Paly and Milpitas and now we have a new challenge ahead of us and we need to keep going."
Los Gatos is the No. 2 seed in Division II and will host North Salinas on Friday night.
WINNERS IN A BIGGER SENSE
Westmont defeated San Jose 52-0 on Friday night, but San Jose managed the most sporting moment of the fall season -- and probably for the entire school year -- allowing special needs student Joey Acaccia to suit up and score a touchdown at the end, despite the fact San Jose had an 0-8 record going in and trailed in the game 46-0. Westmont coach Eric Buran and San Jose coach Darrell Williams collaborated on the uplifting play.
LITTLE EMOTION GOES A LONG WAY
Archbishop Mitty went into its WCAL finale at Serra with a 9-0 record, a league co-title in its hip pocket and the incentive of closing out a perfect regular season going for it. And the Monarchs, with potent weapons in quarterback Trent Scharrenberg and running backs Dakari Monroe and Chandler Ramirez seemed like a good bet to excel against an inconsistent Serra defense that had struggled in a narrow loss to St. Francis and a victory against St. Ignatius. But it was Senior Day at Serra and the Padres had a co-title for the taking with a victory against the Monarchs. Those factors, combined with three touchdown catches by senior receiver Hamilton Anoa'i, led to a resounding 31-7 Serra victory.
"I'm very proud of the team," Serra coach Patrick Walsh said. "We had our ups and downs during the season. That's the way the WCAL season is. We dealt with adversity pretty well."
Serra has not had defensive lineman/tight end Matt Dickerson, the Notre Dame recruit, all season and had starting quarterback Matthew Fa'aita miss nearly two full games due to injury, only to have back-up Anthony Smock shine in Fa'aita's absence.
FRUSTRATION PAYS
It's not a big secret that St. Ignatius is a better team than a 2-8 record indicates as it played a tough non-league schedule and then played well against such heavyweights as Serra and Valley Christian before falling short. But the bottom line is that the Wildcats kept losing and the reward for such futility now comes to light -- a No. 5 seed into the Central Coast Section Division III playoffs where it may prove to be better than the rest of the field. That includes No. 1 seed Burlingame (10-0).
There are no other private school teams in DIII and if we had to bet the mortgage, it would not be against the Wildcats.
