Outstanding performances for the second week in a row by senior running back Jakob Good and a stingy defensive unit propelled Westmont to a 24-14 non-league football victory at Monta Vista on Sept. 19.
Now the Warriors, just one win away from their first 3-0 start since 2005, will host Del Mar (1-1) on Sept. 26, 7 p.m., in a Blossom Valley Athletic League intra-division game.
Good, a powerful 5-foot-11, 205-pounder, ran 26 times for 230 yards and a pair of second-half touchdowns that lifted Westmont out of a 14-10 halftime hole.
Good, who only played defense during his sophomore and junior seasons, quickly has become the go-to guy in new coach Mark Kaanapu’s offensive scheme.
After packing the ball 18 times for 170 yards and two touchdowns the previous week against Leigh, he carried the ball 18 times in the second half alone. Junior quarterback A.J. Mintz handed the ball to Good on all but three of the Warriors’ 21scrimmage plays after halftime.
Good’s 9-yard TD bolt on the last play of the third quarter put the Warriors in front to stay. He ran 10 times for 70 yards on the 13-play, 82-yard drive, including the first eight plays in a row following a Monta Vista punt that was downed on Westmont’s 18-yard line. On the touchdown, he quickly hit a hole created by senior left tackle Destin Rojas.
Stefan Skoff kicked the extra point to make it 17-14.
Late in the fourth quarter, he broke off two long runs following senior linebacker Jamie Bragg’s fumble recovery at the Westmont 36. On the first one, he swept the left side, sprinting to the sideline and then up the field for 41 yards before he was tackled. On the next play he blasted through the left side behind Rojas and senior left guard Joel Godinoz for a 23-yard score. Skoff’s third PAT of the day made it 24-14.
Westmont did have a couple of scares early in the fourth quarter. On the second play of the period Monta Vista senior running back Sam Nastari burst around the left side and then cut diagonally across the field, outrunning the Warriors for what appeared to be a lead-changing, 76-yard TD. However, Nastari had stepped out of bounds after a 23-yard gain at his team’s 47. Three plays later, Monta Vista shocked Westmont again–this time with a rare pass. The receiver was open behind the defense on a fly pattern up the right side, but quarterback Golan Gingold’s well-thrown ball bounced off the receiver’s hand incomplete.
“That play could have gone for a touchdown if we had made the catch there,” said Monta Vista coach Jeff Mueller, whose team lost for the second week in a row and fell to 1-2 going into a bye week.
After an exchange of punts, Monta Vista started at its 35 with 6:47 left in the game. The Matadors, running out of time, converted a fourth-and-1 with Nastari following blocks by juniors Jason Lee and James Migdal for a 4-yard gain. Senior Max McCann then raced 12 yards around right end for another first down at the Westmont 39. The Matadors fumbled on the next play, though, and Bragg recovered at the 36 with 3:51 to go, ending the threat.
Two plays later, Good made the Matadors pay for the mistake, scoring his second touchdown with 3:12 remaining.
“We did not tackle very well and made some fundamental mistakes, and they capitalized,” Mueller said.
McCann was a sure tackler, coming through with a game high 10, giving him 37 in three games.
“He plays his heart out in every game,” Mueller said of the 5-foot-9, 165-pounder, who was the Outstanding Junior of the El Camino Division last fall. “He does everything for us–offense, defense, returning punts.”
Other tacklers for the Matadors were seniors Amol Pande, Danny Takahasi, Israel Martinez, Jasraj Ghuman, Akshay Savale, Calvin Chang, Amir Bashti and Tommy Orvick and juniors Pranav Iyer, Anshu Jain and Joseph Kim.
Westmont scored first, Skoff capping the Warriors’ first possession of the game with a 20-yard field goal, his third three-pointer of the young season.
The Monta Vista touchdowns came in the first half on a pair of 5-yard runs–one by Pande in the first quarter and the other by McCann in the second.
Pande’s score came with 2:48 left in the first quarter, on the third play following a 29-yard punt return by McCann from midfield to the Westmont 21. Bashti’s PAT kick made it 7-3.
Westmont quickly responded after Good returned the ensuing kickoff 25 yards to the 40.
On first down, Mintz hit Cooper Horowitz on a quick out–about a 10-yard pattern. But Horowitz made a trio of potential tacklers miss along the sideline, and the speedy junior pulled away for a 60-yard touchdown catch and run. Skoff kicked the extra point, making it 10-7.
Monta Vista responded with a long scoring drive–80 yards on 11 plays–that was nearly six minutes long, McCann scoring on a sweep around right end with 8:34 left in the second quarter. The Matadors led 14-10, after Bashti again drilled the PAT kick.
Nastari’s 36-yard jaunt around left end put the Mats at Westmont’s 40. From there, Gingold kept the ball seven times for 22 yards on the drive, including a big fourth-and-1 pick-up from the 6. McCann scored on the following play.
Westmont drove into the red zone on its last two possessions of the half, but could not cash in either time. Each time the Warriors started just across midfield after short Monta Vista punts. They marched to the 5 in seven plays, before the first drive stalled, and Skoff just missed a 21-yard field goal from a tough angle. It was wide left.
Later, Good ran twice for 31 yards to get the ball to the 15, but the Warriors fumbled the ball away on the next play and Jain recovered for the Matadors.
Nastari was the Matadors’ top ground gainer, using the blocks of linemen Nolan Hurtado, Migdal, Lee, Takahasi and Ghuman to earn 111 yards on 13 carries. McCann ran six times for 45 yards, while Gingold kept the ball 17 times for a net of 25 yards and Pande gained 19 yards on five rushes.
Gingold attempted just six passes, although he wanted to throw more but Westmont’s pressure forced him to pull the ball down and run a few times. He completed an 11-yarder to senior Sheldon McClellen and a 3-yarder to Nastari.
While Westmont hosts Del Mar on Friday, Monta Vista will have the night off, getting an extra week of preparation prior to their Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division inaugural against defending champion Milpitas. The Trojans, 3-0 after a win at Valley Christian, will be in Cupertino this Friday night to take on Homestead (2-1) in an intra-division game.
