PCAL Week 2
Picks: Last week 13-6 Overall: 13-6
Gabilan- So I jumped the gun on the Salinas VC game. That’s this weekend, odd time for Salinas to take a bye. Rest of the Gabilan stayed to form for the most part. Great debut by Aptos new coach by beating up on TKA. Really bad loss by Alvarez, blowing a 19 point lead to North Monterey County. Just more proof that Alvarez was placed wrong this year. Palma, Monterey, and Hollister all had good wins and you could say Soquel had a good loss? Soquel played Los Gatos close, the Knights should be just fine. Palma’s dismantling of Live Oak was a bit of surprise, we will see if it says more about Palma or more about Live Oak.
Fri 09/06 Pacific Grove (CA) at Alvarez (Salinas, CA), 7:30pm: PG beat a sub par marina team last week, while Alvarez blew a lead to NMC. I am obviously pickling Alvarez. Alvarez 21-18
Fri 09/06 Mitty (San Jose, CA) at Aptos (CA), 7:30pm- The story of Aptos’s demise may be a little premature, great opening week win. But Mitty may be a bit tougher. Mitty 28-24
Fri 09/06 Monterey (CA) vs Menlo-Atherton (Atherton, CA) at MPC (Monterey, CA), 7:30pm: This may be the best game locally. Monterey played well enough to be Alisal, while Menlo Atherton took Bellarmine to the woodshed. Monterey will need to be more consistent this week. Monterey 34-31
Fri 09/06 King City (CA) vs Palma (Salinas, CA) at Salinas (CA), 7:30pm -Palma will schedule whoever it need to in order to stay out of CCS DI. Palma 38-14
Fri 09/06 Soquel (CA) at San Ramon Valley (Danville, CA), 7:00pm - Soquel will be battle tested for league and playoffs, Los Gatos followed by SRV, that’s an impressive 1-2 punch. SRV 21-14
Fri 09/06 Salinas (CA) at Valley Christian (San Jose, CA), 7:00pm- Salinas will be in good shape come league, but it may take a game or 2 for this team to start to play well together. I am not a fan of an opening week bye. Salinas 24-20
Fri 09/06 Hollister (CA) at Wilcox (Santa Clara, CA), 7:00pm -Hollister had a nice win over Branham while Wilcox got beaten up by Valley Christian. The Haybalers always seem to lose when I pick them in a ‘big” game. Sorry Hollister. Hollister 27-20
Mission North-It was a tough week as the league went 2-5. Scott’s Valley was able to beat up on Santa Cruz and North Monterey County had probably the best PCAL victory of the week in beating Alvarez. Watsonville lost a close game to Greenfield, ditto for St. Francis vs King City. MVC scored points like I thought (28), but they gave up way to many points (48) in a bad loss to Piedmont Hills. Alisal got Blitzed by Monterey but settled down, or Monterey took the foot off the gas. And Seaside was completely overmatched by SHP. Let’s hope for some better results this week.
Thu 09/05 Marina (CA) at North Monterey County (Castroville, CA), 7:30pm- NMC should eaily go to 2-0. Lets hope they don’t overlook marina. NMC 28-7
Fri 09/06 Santa Cruz (CA) vs Watsonville (CA) at Cabrillo College (Aptos, CA), 7:00pm- If my math is right these 2 teasm first played each other 116 years ago in 1908. That’s kind of cool. Watsonville 24-14
Fri 09/06 Alisal (Salinas, CA) vs North Salinas (Salinas, CA) at Salinas Sports Complex (Salinas, CA), 7:30pm – Lets se if Alisal can bounce back after the Monterey loss, meanwhile NS will be looking for answers after getting beaten up by Sobrato. Alisal 24-7
Fri 09/06 Monte Vista Christian (Watsonville, CA) at Santa Clara (CA), 7:30pm- Hopefully MVC will make some defense adjustments. 48 points to Piedmont Hills is way too much. MVC 35-24
Sat 09/07 Seaside (CA) at Carmel (CA), 2:00pm – If last weeks any indication, this could get ugly for Seaside. Carmel will score, a lot and I dont know if Seaside has the same firepower as in years past. Carmel 48-14
Sat 09/07 Branham (San Jose, CA) at Scotts Valley (CA), 2:00pm-Scott's Valley had a nice win vs a rebuilding Santa Cruz team. Branham is way better. Branham 16-14
Sat 09/07 Pajaro Valley (Watsonville, CA) at St. Francis (Watsonville, CA), 12:30pm- PV scored 57 last week, I don’t care if it was Lynbrook. That’s a great start, is there a changing of the guard in Watsonville area football? Probably not. St. Francis 28-21
Mission South- Carmel had a great win vs Christopher. They should cruise to a pretty high seed in DIII playoffs. I am looking forward to the Orinda game and the Monterey game in the next few weeks. There were no other big surprises or any other indication that there is another team in this division that will be able to challenge Carmel. PG took care of business vs Marina. King City and Greenfield both had nice wins vs Mission North teams. Soledad got walloped by a WCAL team. North Salinas lost to Sobrato and Rancho had the worst loss as they were stopped by C league Gonzales.
Thu 09/05 Rancho San Juan (Salinas, CA) at Los Altos (CA), 7:00pm- Rancho Will try to get its offense going and get there first points of the year. Los Altos 21-7
Fri 09/06 Soledad (CA) at Gonzales (CA), 7:30pm -I love a good old fashion backyard brawl. This maybe listed as a Gonzales home Game, but it is being played at Soledad. Does Soledad have to use the visitors’ locker room? Gonzales had a good win vs Rancho while Soledad was beaten badly by SHC. Soledad 14-13
Santa Lucia-The future looks bright for SLV and Pajaro after nice wins last week. Santa Cruz scored its first points in over a year, so that is definitely a step in the right direction. Gonzales had a great win a B league team. Marian and Harbor, not so good starts. Harbor gave up 34 to a usually poor Del Mar program and Marian was very sloppy in its loss to Pacific Grove. This week RLS gets its first game of the year!
Thu 09/05 Harbor (Santa Cruz, CA) at Yerba Buena (San Jose, CA), 7:15pm: Yerba Buena is a good opponent for Harbor, lets see if the Bucs can show some improvement. Yerba Buena 28-24
Fri 09/06 San Lorenzo Valley (Felton, CA) at Gunderson (San Jose, CA), 7:15pm -SLV had a great opening win vs south San Francisco, lets see if they can make it 2 in a row. SLV 24-7
Sat 09/07 Greenfield (CA) at Stevenson (Pebble Beach, CA), 2:30pm- Greenfield is probably the better team, and should be favored. But don’t discount the mighty RLS Pirates as they look to revenge their only league loss of last year. RLS 21-20!!
Picks: Last week 13-6 Overall: 13-6
Gabilan- So I jumped the gun on the Salinas VC game. That’s this weekend, odd time for Salinas to take a bye. Rest of the Gabilan stayed to form for the most part. Great debut by Aptos new coach by beating up on TKA. Really bad loss by Alvarez, blowing a 19 point lead to North Monterey County. Just more proof that Alvarez was placed wrong this year. Palma, Monterey, and Hollister all had good wins and you could say Soquel had a good loss? Soquel played Los Gatos close, the Knights should be just fine. Palma’s dismantling of Live Oak was a bit of surprise, we will see if it says more about Palma or more about Live Oak.
Fri 09/06 Pacific Grove (CA) at Alvarez (Salinas, CA), 7:30pm: PG beat a sub par marina team last week, while Alvarez blew a lead to NMC. I am obviously pickling Alvarez. Alvarez 21-18
Fri 09/06 Mitty (San Jose, CA) at Aptos (CA), 7:30pm- The story of Aptos’s demise may be a little premature, great opening week win. But Mitty may be a bit tougher. Mitty 28-24
Fri 09/06 Monterey (CA) vs Menlo-Atherton (Atherton, CA) at MPC (Monterey, CA), 7:30pm: This may be the best game locally. Monterey played well enough to be Alisal, while Menlo Atherton took Bellarmine to the woodshed. Monterey will need to be more consistent this week. Monterey 34-31
Fri 09/06 King City (CA) vs Palma (Salinas, CA) at Salinas (CA), 7:30pm -Palma will schedule whoever it need to in order to stay out of CCS DI. Palma 38-14
Fri 09/06 Soquel (CA) at San Ramon Valley (Danville, CA), 7:00pm - Soquel will be battle tested for league and playoffs, Los Gatos followed by SRV, that’s an impressive 1-2 punch. SRV 21-14
Fri 09/06 Salinas (CA) at Valley Christian (San Jose, CA), 7:00pm- Salinas will be in good shape come league, but it may take a game or 2 for this team to start to play well together. I am not a fan of an opening week bye. Salinas 24-20
Fri 09/06 Hollister (CA) at Wilcox (Santa Clara, CA), 7:00pm -Hollister had a nice win over Branham while Wilcox got beaten up by Valley Christian. The Haybalers always seem to lose when I pick them in a ‘big” game. Sorry Hollister. Hollister 27-20
Mission North-It was a tough week as the league went 2-5. Scott’s Valley was able to beat up on Santa Cruz and North Monterey County had probably the best PCAL victory of the week in beating Alvarez. Watsonville lost a close game to Greenfield, ditto for St. Francis vs King City. MVC scored points like I thought (28), but they gave up way to many points (48) in a bad loss to Piedmont Hills. Alisal got Blitzed by Monterey but settled down, or Monterey took the foot off the gas. And Seaside was completely overmatched by SHP. Let’s hope for some better results this week.
Thu 09/05 Marina (CA) at North Monterey County (Castroville, CA), 7:30pm- NMC should eaily go to 2-0. Lets hope they don’t overlook marina. NMC 28-7
Fri 09/06 Santa Cruz (CA) vs Watsonville (CA) at Cabrillo College (Aptos, CA), 7:00pm- If my math is right these 2 teasm first played each other 116 years ago in 1908. That’s kind of cool. Watsonville 24-14
Fri 09/06 Alisal (Salinas, CA) vs North Salinas (Salinas, CA) at Salinas Sports Complex (Salinas, CA), 7:30pm – Lets se if Alisal can bounce back after the Monterey loss, meanwhile NS will be looking for answers after getting beaten up by Sobrato. Alisal 24-7
Fri 09/06 Monte Vista Christian (Watsonville, CA) at Santa Clara (CA), 7:30pm- Hopefully MVC will make some defense adjustments. 48 points to Piedmont Hills is way too much. MVC 35-24
Sat 09/07 Seaside (CA) at Carmel (CA), 2:00pm – If last weeks any indication, this could get ugly for Seaside. Carmel will score, a lot and I dont know if Seaside has the same firepower as in years past. Carmel 48-14
Sat 09/07 Branham (San Jose, CA) at Scotts Valley (CA), 2:00pm-Scott's Valley had a nice win vs a rebuilding Santa Cruz team. Branham is way better. Branham 16-14
Sat 09/07 Pajaro Valley (Watsonville, CA) at St. Francis (Watsonville, CA), 12:30pm- PV scored 57 last week, I don’t care if it was Lynbrook. That’s a great start, is there a changing of the guard in Watsonville area football? Probably not. St. Francis 28-21
Mission South- Carmel had a great win vs Christopher. They should cruise to a pretty high seed in DIII playoffs. I am looking forward to the Orinda game and the Monterey game in the next few weeks. There were no other big surprises or any other indication that there is another team in this division that will be able to challenge Carmel. PG took care of business vs Marina. King City and Greenfield both had nice wins vs Mission North teams. Soledad got walloped by a WCAL team. North Salinas lost to Sobrato and Rancho had the worst loss as they were stopped by C league Gonzales.
Thu 09/05 Rancho San Juan (Salinas, CA) at Los Altos (CA), 7:00pm- Rancho Will try to get its offense going and get there first points of the year. Los Altos 21-7
Fri 09/06 Soledad (CA) at Gonzales (CA), 7:30pm -I love a good old fashion backyard brawl. This maybe listed as a Gonzales home Game, but it is being played at Soledad. Does Soledad have to use the visitors’ locker room? Gonzales had a good win vs Rancho while Soledad was beaten badly by SHC. Soledad 14-13
Santa Lucia-The future looks bright for SLV and Pajaro after nice wins last week. Santa Cruz scored its first points in over a year, so that is definitely a step in the right direction. Gonzales had a great win a B league team. Marian and Harbor, not so good starts. Harbor gave up 34 to a usually poor Del Mar program and Marian was very sloppy in its loss to Pacific Grove. This week RLS gets its first game of the year!
Thu 09/05 Harbor (Santa Cruz, CA) at Yerba Buena (San Jose, CA), 7:15pm: Yerba Buena is a good opponent for Harbor, lets see if the Bucs can show some improvement. Yerba Buena 28-24
Fri 09/06 San Lorenzo Valley (Felton, CA) at Gunderson (San Jose, CA), 7:15pm -SLV had a great opening win vs south San Francisco, lets see if they can make it 2 in a row. SLV 24-7
Sat 09/07 Greenfield (CA) at Stevenson (Pebble Beach, CA), 2:30pm- Greenfield is probably the better team, and should be favored. But don’t discount the mighty RLS Pirates as they look to revenge their only league loss of last year. RLS 21-20!!
