With both teams coming off fairly large victories, in the sense of point-spreads, against schools rated in sub-zero categories, CCS/Mission Trail/Pacific Grove from Monterey County rated (12.1) beat (1.2) rated visiting CCS/DeAnza/Freemont of Santa Clara County in a game that opened like someone had poured a bottle of jalapeño sauce into the Gater-aide, with both teams scoring as the result of big, long opening plays only 45 seconds into the 1st quarter.
The Firebirds scored first, after running the opening kick-off to their own 49 yd line and then shocking the Breakers with a short quick pass and run for a 51 yd TD, only to be answered by PG who ran the ensuing kick-off 76 yds to the 24, with #6 Ebo scoring on a run two plays later (the PAT attempt went wide). Next two times PG got the ball, they scored on long running plays, only to be over-taken buy the F-Birds who scored on a long pass and a long run, leading at the end of the 1st quarter 21-20.
From then on, the 2nd quarter had the Firebirds fizzling with the Breakers breaking bad all over Freemont by racking up an unaswered 36 points, going into halftime with the score 57-21, thanks to 1 passing and 4 running TDs. By the time the game ended (with some sort of mercy clock running when the refs weren't looking), PG's Ebo had run for 3 TDs with Cryns (rhymes with Ryan's) scoring two TDs and kicking a FG, and with Foster scoring a pair of sixes. At this point, after a bye last week, PG is looking Mission Trail league strong and likely will run the table until the season's closer against arch rival Carmel, now 1-1 (with a bye this weekend.) To beat the Padres, and go very far in the post season, the Breakers will have to shore-up two vulnerabilities that were apparent, tonight: defending against the quick short pass and runs around end.
Sideline notes for the night: When PG's fast #21 Foster who, after carrying the ball an extra 10 yds with the entire Freemont team mauling or piling on to him during what looked like a rugby scrum, got his helmet torn from his head, he got up laughing and for a moment I thought Tom Cruise had reprised his role from his break-out movie, what was it called, Risky Business? Foster a spitting image of the Mission Impossible star... Funnist part of the eve, during the 1st half, hanging around the pedestrian path infront of the stands a bunch of little 8-10 year old future boy and girl Breakers and Breakerettes, the gals, about 8 of them cheering and shaking orange pom-poms while two boys hung a 3'x3' white sign over the fence, all of them trying to get the attention of one of the PG players. What was funny, to me anyway, was when the lads tired of no player response, they climbed down from the fence and I got a glimpse of the front of their sign. It was blank. Totally nothing on it. Zip. And there you have it. The future hope of mankind, holding up a sign that's blank on both sides while cheering...for nothing?!... Second game now I've sat high-up on the PG side smelling something really good being BBQ'd near the concession stand behind the North/East end-zone. Next time, I'm going to yield to temptation and find out if the taste lives up to the smell. Muds
