SAN JOSE, CA -- Penalties, turnovers, and special teams' breakdowns -- not a spectacular performance by either team. However, second half adjustments proved to be the deciding factor as the Leigh Longhorns held off the Willow Glen Rams 26-12 Friday night, clinching a CCS playoff berth.
During a sloppy first half, Leigh had three turnovers, an interception and two fumbles, including one on the Ram 1 yard line. Willow Glen was no different, throwing three interceptions.
The scoring began with a 22 yard touchdown reception by senior Aiden McErlean. Resembling Megatron, McErlean simply out jumped his defender in the corner of the end zone to score the first touchdown of the game. But the dreaded turnovers prevented Leigh from running away with it early. Leigh fumbled on their own 15 yard line and the Rams converted scoring on a 4th down conversion with a 15 yard touchdown pass to Clay Wilson. The extra point missed wide left keeping Leigh ahead.
When asked about Coach Caballero’s gutsy fourth down play calls, he quickly replied “[a]s long as I am going to be here that is what we are going to be doing offensively, making sure we are aggressive and keeping our foot on the pedal, making sure we push defenses and make sure they respect all parts of the field.”
The next series was representative of the first half for both teams. Leigh drove to the Ram 1 yard line. There, quarterback Jared King tried punching it in himself, but fumbled. On the very next play, Jake Hutchinson intercepted a Rams' pass putting Leigh in scoring position. This time, Mason Pekarthy crossed the goal line before fumbling with a 3 yard rushing touchdown. The extra point was blocked.
On the ensuing kickoff Clay Wilson took it to the house, racing 94 yards for the score. Willow Glen attempted to make up their missed PAT earlier with a fake extra point, but the pass into the end zone was batted away by Leigh’s Greg Le.
Despite scoring both touchdowns for the Rams, Clay Wilson was extremely selfless saying, “[t]he whole team tried to go out there and do our best, I just went out there and did what I could.”
A halftime pep talk and a few adjustments proved to make the difference for the Leigh Longhorns. Leigh came out of the locker room playing much cleaner football. “I really just talked to the kids in the locker room about doing their job, stop trying to do everything and make the biggest plays, just do your job. I told them to slow down and they executed, so we were happy with that," Leigh coach Kyle Padia said.
The Longhorns shut the Rams out in the second half scoring two touchdowns -- a 25 yard rushing TD by Mason Pekarthy and an 11 yard touchdown reception by Le.
The Longhorns improved to 5-2 on the season and 2-2 in league and officially clinched a spot in the CCS playoffs, but have four two-way players injured.
