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A handful of Sequoia football players sat in the bleachers at Pat Tillman Stadium last Monday night, watching Leland host Mt. Pleasant in the first round of the Central Coast Section Division II playoffs.
They didn’t stay for long.
After all, it was a school night, and they had to make the long drive back to Redwood City. What’s more, they knew pretty early on who they would be playing on Saturday night.
The Chargers made short work of the Cardinals in the unusual Monday night football game, opening up a 31-0 first-half lead on the way to a lopsided 52-6 victory.
The rare–actually, unprecedented in CCS playoff history–Monday game was the result of a lightning storm that forced the postponement of the game originally scheduled for Saturday night.
That lightning display, though, was no more electric than the Chargers were in the win over the Cards, a win that pushed them into the CCS D-II semifinals.
No. 2-seeded Sequoia (10-0-1), a 20-13 winner over Los Altos last Friday night, will host No. 3 Leland (8-3) on Nov. 27, 7 p.m., in Redwood City. And while the Chargers may have rolled over MP in the first-round game earlier this week, they weren’t left with much time to prepare for the Cherokee.
“We’ll start our preparation work,” said Leland coach Mike Carrozzo moments after the win. “We usually have about 2½ days to prepare for a game, but now we only have 18 hours. It makes for a pretty long night.”
Carrozzo and his staff were leaving the field and headed straight to the videos to get a look at the Cherokee attack.
“We looked a little,” said Carrozzo, who was more concerned about the first round than the second before Monday’s game. “We took a little peek, but now it’s a full-court press until the sun comes up.”
“They’re going to come out ready,” he added. “They run a spread option and they have a strong, solid runner and huge linemen.”
Leading the way up front for the Cherokee is 360-pound two-way tackle David Satele. Countering Satele and the other Sequoia linemen will be a Leland offensive front of tackles Peter Vassalo and Stephen Economy, guards Nick Oberhelman and Andrew Nelms and center Nick Lee. The Leland line led the Chargers to an impressive 413 yards of total offense in the win over Mt. Pleasant.
Heading up that attack was junior running back Chris Santini, who raced for 135 yards on 10 carries, including a 38-yard run in the first half.
Kenny Portera supported with 67 yards on 10 tries and Jack Pizzo added 32 yards on seven attempts. Freshman Holland Crider broke a run 28 yards, Andrew Gregarick carried three times for 28 and Tim McLaughlin took one 17 yards.
Junior quarterback Jason Habash led the Chargers through the air, hitting on 8 of 15 passes for 84 yards and a couple of touchdowns. Jeff Carnduff caught two balls for 26 yards and Michael Reeve grabbed the two TD tosses for a combined 16 yards. Santini, Portera, McLaughlin and Mike Maggipinto also had receptions in the win.
But as good as the offense was on the night, it was the defense that got Leland on the board first. Pizzo picked off a pass on Mt. Pleasant’s first play of the game and raced 31 yards for a score. McLaughlin, who booted a 35-yard field goal on the final play of the first half, kicked the first of seven extra points to give the Chargers a 7-0 lead just 18 seconds into the game.
Santini scored on a 7-yard run to put Leland up 14-0 after a period, and Habash hit Reeves with a 9-yard TD toss midway through the second.
Santini’s 38-yard run set up the next score, but not before Economy came through with a heads-up play. Habash fumbled after picking up four yards. The loose ball bounced off a Mt. Pleasant player and right into the hands of Economy, who buried his head for three more yards to the 8-yard-line. Santini scored on the next play.
McLaughlin’s field goal made it 31-0 at intermission, but Mt. Pleasant managed to avoid a shutout early in the third, picking up a fumble and taking it in for its only score of the night.
Leland answered with a solid 10-play, 91-yard scoring drive. Santini had runs of 16 and 35 yards on the drive and Habash hit Carnduff for 10 yards, but a big play came inside the MP 10 when another fumble squirted in the air and Oberhelman grabbed it and turned it into a 2-yard carry.
Habash found Reeve in the end zone for a 7-yard TD toss, and it was 38-6.
McLaughlin scored on a 17-yard run on the first play of the fourth quarter and Gregarick closed out the scoring with a 22-yard touchdown run with 4:15 left in the game.
The offense finished the night with more than 400 yards, and the defense was equally as impressive, holding the Cardinals to just 42 yards of total offense and not allowing a score.
Beneel Babaei, Gregarick, Economy and Vassalo were the tackling leaders for the Chargers in the win. Babaei and Gregarick finished with seven tackles apiece–three of Gregarick’s stops coming in the MP backfield–and Economy and Vassalo had six each–two of Ecomony’s for losses.
McLaughlin and Mitch Goble had four tackles apiece for Leland, Pizzo had three to go with his pick and Santini, Ian Glusker, Lee and Crider were in on two each. Chase Hubbard intercepted a pass, Reeve had a quarterback sack and Robert Moffatt and Portera were also in on tackles.
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