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Wildcats roll to season opening win
Edwards, Willard lead powerful offense
By Dick Sparrer
It didn't start out exactly the way Los Gatos football coach Butch Cattolico hoped it would. But the Gatos head coach was certainly pleased with the way things ended up when the Wildcats opened the 2001 season with a rousing 35-8 victory over Leland last Saturday afternoon.
Leland came out driving under the hot afternoon sun, but the Chargers could only make it to the Los Gatos 25 before turning the football over on downs to the Wildcats.
And once the Gatos offense took the field, the game was all but over.
Senior quarterback Trent Edwards engineered a six-play, 75-yard drive to paydirt with Chris Willard capping the march when he blasted over from the three.
The Wildcats scored on three of their next four possessions to take a 28-0 lead by intermission and cruised from there to the victory.
"We're very inexperienced on defense," said Cattolico, explaining Leland's game-opening drive. "We have only one kid in the secondary who played varsity football last year."
"The kids just weren't ready to go out and play football," he added.
But while the Cats may be inexperienced on defense, they're loaded with veterans on the offensive side.
"Our offense is just the opposite [of the defense]," said the coach. "We have just one kid on the offense who wasn't on the varsity last year."
The Wildcats scored on their first possession of the day and built up a 35-0 lead early in the third quarter.
Gatos rolled up 456 yards of total offense with Edwards and Willard leading the attack.
Edwards completed 11 of 16 passes for 185 yards and two touchdowns, and Willard led the ground assault with 128 yards on 17 carries. Neither one played after the first possession of the third period.
"We played well," added the coach, "and it was important to get a game like this under out belts before going out to play St. Francis."
The Wildcats will host the Lancers on Sept. 14, 7:30 p.m., in a nonleague game at Helm Field.
Edwards certainly lived up to expectations with his passing performance in the opener.
"He threw the ball well," said Cattolico of Edwards. "But what was most impressive was his leadership out there. He ran the offense and delivered the ball real well."
Scott Cohn was Edwards' favorite target. The senior wide receiver pulled in seven passes for 123 yards in the win.
"He's catching the ball real well," said Cattolico of Cohn, who saw limited duty behind speedsters Brian Edwards and Joey Warren last year. "But he learned a lot covering [Brian] Edwards in practice last year, and he's worked his tail off."
Charlie Clark, who sat out last season, returned to the field to romp for 54 yards on six carries.
Cattolico felt that the offensive line dominated play up front in the win over Leland. He praised the work of tackles John Allen and Nick Crafford, center Dan Holtzman and guards Evan McDonald, Ryan Johnson and Matt Rose. He also singled out tight end Geno Gingery and fullback Travis Howell for their blocking.
While the coach may be concerned about his inexperienced defensive unit, he was especially pleased with the performances of Jon Espe in the line, nose guard Ken Heimer, Gingery at defensive end and Howell at linebacker.
Espe led the defense with 13 tackles, including four quarterback sacks.
"He looks so good in the defensive line," said Cattolico of Espe. "He was just dominant ... absolutely unblockable."
Heimer had a sack among his nine tackles and was a defensive star for the Cats.
"He comes off the block so quickly," said Cattolico, "and he's the fastest guy on the team."
Gingery was in on nine tackles for the Cats and Howell was in on nine. Shaun Sullivan had seven tackles, Derek Tam and Brett Cavanagh were in on six apiece and Ben Miller finished with four.
The defense bent but didn't break on Leland's first possession, then the Cats got on the board quickly on Willard's 3-yard touchdown run. Anthony Frangadakis kicked the extra points to make it 7-0.
"He really kicked the ball well," said Cattolico of Frangadakis, who booted five extra points and drilled four of six kickoffs into the endzone.
Gatos took over after a Leland punt moments later, and a 39-yard toss from Edwards to Cohn set up a 1-yard TD run by Willard.
The Wildcats took over at the Leland eight later in the half when the Chargers faked a punt and tossed an incomplete pass deep in their own territory.
Edwards proved that a team should never give a quarterback of his abilities the football in such good field position when he flipped a 5-yard scoring toss to Cohn.
Willard, Howell and James Furlo carried the football into Leland territory before the end of the half, and Edwards fired a 30-yard scoring toss to Cohn to up the lead to 28-0.
Edwards went to Cohn twice for 28 yards before Clark took off on a 39-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter, and the starters went to the bench for the rest of the day.
Back-up quarterback Alex Rollin came on to complete two passes in as many attempts for 21 yards.
Gingery had a couple of catches for 41 yards in the win and Chris McMorrow snapped one for 15, Willard one for 12, Furlo one for nine and Anthony Paglia one for six.
Brian Miguel carried three times for 17 yards, James Gentry had a couple of carries for 13, Tam ran once for 13, Furlo had two runs for 11 and Barrett Carpenter ran twice for 10 yards.
Cohn, Furlo, Andy Betzina, Clark, James Gentry, Jeff Oleson, Dave Fencl, Allen, Theron McCarty, Drew Hoffman, Andrew O'Gorman and Stuart Gordon were others in on tackles for the Wildcats.
"One thing we know this year is that our offense is going to have to get us going," said Cattolico. "Most of the returning players are playing really well right now. As for the rest, we hope they come around and make us a good football team."
"As a whole," he added, "we've got to play much better defensively. Our younger kids just aren't ready to play right now."
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
