As fate would have it, injuries to Leland quarterback Carson Yates and running back Jesse Cavanna couldn’t have come at better times.
Cavanna went down with an ankle injury in an Oct. 3 win over Lincoln and Yates went down at the end of the month, contributing to a three-game losing streak to close the regular season. Those losses combined to knock the Chargers down to the CCS Division V bracket, where they hold the top seed and will be playing for a championship on Friday night against Santa Cruz.
While the offense struggled tremendously without Yates, having to rely almost exclusively on the run and scoring just 34 total points in the three games without the star quarterback, the Chargers did find new ways to get results. In a 21-14 quarterfinal win over Mt. Pleasant, the final game played without Yates, sophomore Mark Eby ran 32 times for 269 yards and all three Leland touchdowns.
Eby himself had been focused on much more heavily ever since Cavanna had gone down, and with the offense finally at full strength in last week’s 48-26 win over Homestead, the Chargers are back to firing on all cylinders. They put up the second-highest point total the Mustangs had yielded on the season, and they did it by spreading the ball around. Yates only threw for 103 yards and one touchdown but ran for 161 and three scores while Eby had 160 yards on 28 carries. Cavanna scored his first touchdown since the injury, with six carries for 38 yards.
Considering how well the Chargers performed against a stout Homestead defense, they’ll be the heavy favorites against Santa Cruz, though that’s a familiar position for the second-seeded Cardinals. Even in consecutive home games to open the postseason, they were constantly doubted, avenging an earlier loss to Pacific Grove and beating a Santa Teresa team that played in the BVAL Mount Hamilton Division with Leland.
The Chargers beat those Saints on Oct. 11, even without Cavanna. Facing an offense at full strength, the Cardinal defense will have its hands full Friday night, but they’ve largely handled tough opponents this year. No team has put up more than 30 against Santa Cruz, and when the Cardinals got another shot at Pacific Grove, they held the Breakers to just 14. Aside from a surprising 27-20 loss to Watsonville after the PCAL Cypress title was already wrapped up, no team has found the end zone more than twice against Santa Cruz this month, and the two teams that have had the misfortune of traveling to SC in the postseason only got their second score after the outcome was well in hand.
Just as Eby’s been excellent for Leland, Santa Cruz has also been able to rely on a stellar sophomore running back in Qwentin Brown. In the Stump Game, a Nov. 1 win at Soquel to clinch the league title, the Cardinals got 223 yards and three touchdowns from Brown, an authoritative performance from the sophomore to clinch the league title. Like the Chargers, they also have a dual-threat quarterback as well. Dillon Danner was largely held in check during that game, but he starred two weeks earlier to beat North Monterey County, with 163 passing yards and another 73 on the ground.
Both Danner and running back Makai Norman are no strangers to championship games, having lost CCS Division IV basketball championships in consecutive years. While Leland’s roster doesn’t have a basketball presence, the Charger athletic department has also been a constant presence in section championship games. Leland lost in title games in both basketball and baseball last year, and as a baseball star committed to play at UCLA, Yates will surely want to avenge that loss.
