By Terry Bernal San Mateo Daily Journal
After 18 years, the Burlingame Panthers’ drought is over.
It was 1997 when the Panthers last captured a Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division championship. And even though this year’s bid looked to be in dire straits after last week’s loss to Sacred Heart Prep, Burlingame bounced back in Friday’s Bay Division finale with a 14-0 victory over Menlo-Atherton at Umland Stadium.
With the win, the Panthers (4-1 in PAL Bay, 8-1 overall) close the season in a three-way co-championship with Sacred Heart Prep and Menlo-Atherton. For Burlingame head coach John Philipopoulos, the co-championship is just as sweet as a solo deal.
“In my mind, the way these kids have played all year, they’re champions,” Philipopoulos said.
It was certainly a crowning achievement for the Burlingame defense, which entered into play Friday having given up an average of 23 points per game through four previous Bay Division matchups. But, for all the big-number rushing performances M-A (4-1, 5-4) has posted this season, the Panthers held the Bears to just 97 team rushing yards Friday.
“Our defense has been the backbone all season long and tonight was no different,” Philipopoulos said.
Not that the Bears didn’t have their chances. They closed the first half with two possessions inside the red zone, but were denied both times by a Panthers defensive line that seemed to derive power from having its back up against the wall.
The goal-line stand at the end of the first half will certainly be spotlighted as one of the highlights of Burlingame’s season. Facing second-and-goal from the 10, the Bears advanced the ball to the Burlingame 1-yard line on a 9-yard run by the PAL Bay Division’s second leading rusher Jordan Mims.
But the Panthers defense was up to the task to keep M-A from crossing the goal line on the following two plays.
Burlingame senior linebacker Will Costelli got in on the third-down stop on a dive play to Mims. Then on fourth down, defensive tackles Alex Furr and Andrew Friedeberg walled out fullback Stavro Papadakis with an assist from defensive back Cole Friedlander.
Costelli, a third-year varsity player, said the stand is tops on his all-time highlight reel.
“For me, it’s got to be No. 1,” Burlingame Costelli said. “That was huge.”
Furr concurred. “By far the best,” Furr said.
The stop sent the Panthers into the halftime locker room up 7-0. The Panthers’ offense may not have put up a spectacular performance — running back Laipeli Palu managed a game-high of 95 yards on 23 carries — but they controlled the tempo of the game, and grinded out two gutsy scoring drives.
“That’s what we do,” Philipopoulos said. “We run the ball, try to control the clock and keep them on the sidelines.”
Burlingame dominated time of possession in the game at 27:10, and really hit the breaks in the second half after going up by two scores.
“They were able to run the ball consistently enough and they beat us up with their front eight on defense,” M-A head coach Adhir Ravipati said.
The Panthers got on the board in the first quarter on a 10-play, 52-yard drive using a three-prong running attack with a strong finish from senior Joevani Garcia. The 5-7 senior pounded the ball across the goal line with a 2-yard sweep around the right side to stake Burlingame to a 7-0 lead.
Then on their first possession of the second half, the Panthers trekked even further for an eight-play, 84-yard scoring drive. M-A seemed like it was finally gathering momentum, keeping the Burlingame rush in check and forcing the Panthers into a third-and-12 look from their own 37-yard line. But quarterback Cam Kelaita peeled off a long, towering pass down the left side to senior Cooper Gindraux, who outleapt the M-A cornerback to make the reception 20 yards shy of the end zone; the stealthy receiver then broke a tackle and juked around the M-A safety for the score.
The Burlingame defense then stuck M-A to two consecutive three-and-outs. The Bears’ next first down didn’t come until after Burlingame maintained a drive that ate up more than half of the fourth quarter. By the time M-A got the ball back with 5:55 in the game, quarterback Miles Conrad led his team downfield with completions of 13, 16, 5 and 3 yards. But then on third-and-10 from the Burlingame 27-yard line, Conrad forced a pass into the middle that turned into a backbreaking interception by Burlingame senior Vinny Ferrari.
“We tried to get some momentum and confidence and we just didn’t,” Ravipati said.
Mims totaled 73 rushing yards on 11 carries to surpass the 1,000-yard plateau in the junior’s first full varsity season.
For Burlingame, the shutout marks its first in PAL Bay Division play since Oct. 12, 2007 when the Panthers battled to a 0-0 tie with Terra Nova. The Panthers’ had one other shutout this season in nonleague play with a 30-0 win over Everett Alvarez. Their last league shutout was in 2013 against archrival San Mateo in PAL Ocean Division play to cap their last overall PAL league title.
