Welcome to Tales from Steinbeck Country, a section focusing on the southern part of the Central Coast Section, much like Harold Abend’s Behind the Redwood Curtain documents the goings-on of the teams in Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties.
If there’s one story that dominated the first week of PCAL play, it was undoubtedly Salinas’ surprising 24-14 win over Palma at the Salinas Sports Complex. Whereas last year’s 21-7 win at The Pit, one that snapped a 14-year losing streak, wasn’t much of a surprise with a young and inexperienced Chieftains squad, this year’s was certainly more of a shock.
“Our nonleague schedule really toughened us up and prepared us for Palma,” said Salinas head coach Steve Zenk, a Palma alumnus himself.
Previously-winless Alvarez gave Gilroy a harsh welcome to the Gabilan Division, pulling away in the second half for a 28-0 home victory.
There were no major surprises in the PCAL’s lower divisions, but Alisal certainly made a firm statement with a dominant 42-19 win over North Salinas, opening up a 21-0 lead by halftime.
The shift to a massive power league sacrificed some of the local games for the sake of competition, and there were instant payoffs. In the inaugural week of play in the Santa Lucia Division, Stevenson came from behind in a 30-26 win over Marina. While both those teams were formerly in the Mission Trail Athletic League, games like Friday’s were hard to come by and were instead typically replaced by lopsided blowouts. Both the Pirates and Mariners should be able to expect more quality games moving ahead in their new division.
