Defense 'superb' in Gatos win
Narragon rambles for 121 yards, four TDs against Leland
By Dick Sparrer
Most teams would be pretty satisfied with more than 300 yards of total offense in a football game.
But Los Gatos isn't like most other teams.
Butch Cattolico and his Wildcats have higher expectations and loftier goals than most teams, so therefore play to higher standards.
So despite 320 yards of total offense in last Saturday's 28-7 win over Leland, it's back to the drawing board for the Gatos offense this week.
The defense? Well, that's another story all together.
"Defensively, I thought we played superbly," said Cattolico after the impressive victory. "The defense really dominated the game for us. Defensively, we gave the ball to the offense in pretty good shape."
And the offense made good use of the field position, but the Cats could have been a little sharper to Cattolico's taste.
"The offense did all right," he admitted, "but we have to become a much better offensive team. We made too many mistakes."
Still, with the defense playing as well as it did, the offense did what it had to do to bring home the victory.
And doing most of the damage for the Wildcats was senior tailback Justin Narragon.
The 5-foot-10, 198-pound back raced for 121 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Wildcats offensively.
"They came out and played a 6-2 all game," said Cattolico of the Leland defensive scheme. "I felt like we needed a big back in there."
Naggagon turned out to be the big back the Cats needed, carrying most of the offensive load by running the football 23 times for his 121 yards.
"Of course, you don't get a guy running for 100 yards without the guys up front playing well," added the coach, who singled out tackles Ryan O'Gorman and Mike Belsheim for "outstanding" performances.
Cattolico added that Nick Cisowski, Rick Esparza, Nick McAlpine and Briston Lowry also played well in the interior line, that tight ends Ben Winkelman and Jared Allen blocked well and that wide receiver Kevin Krug blocked well down field.
But it was the defense that keyed the victory in this one, and it was Nick Skrabe and Winkelman leading the defensive effort for the Cats.
Skrabe had a quarterback sack among his 11 tackles, and he also recovered a fumble. Winkelman was in on nine tackles, including a couple of sacks.
"Overall, he had the best game of everyone on the field," said Cattolico of Winkelman, who played well defensively and "caught the ball and blocked real well" on offense.
Brian Edwards had six tackles and forced two fumbles, one that was recovered by Leland and the other that Skrabe covered.
Joey Warren had a pass interception to go with six tackles, and Allen had five tackles, forced a fumble and tipped a pass that Jason Rosa intercepted.
Lowry got in on eight tackles for the Cats, and Markus Willard was in on six. Mike Vyhnal, Steve Smith and Vince Caviglia were in on four tackles each, Scott Soucy got in on two, and Rosa, Ryan Callahan, Kyle Shaffer, Casey Sargent, Matt Spears, Randy Reilly, Bret Maryon and Philip Masleid were also in on stops.
Senior quarterback Matt Torres hooked up on four of seven passes for 102 yards and soph QB Trent Edwards completed two of four tosses for six yards. Winkelman had four catches for 88 yards, Krug had one for 19 yards and Derek Smith one for one yard.
Los Gatos back Derek Smith fights for yardage in the 28-7 win over Leland.
Warren supported Narragon in the rushing department with 72 yards on just two tries. In fact, it was a 70-yard run by Warren that set up Narragon's first touchdown.
The Cats had fallen behind 7-0 early in the game when Leland turned a blocked punt into a touchdown.
Leland boomed the ensuing kick into the end zone and the Cats took over at their own 20.
Narragon went five yards on a sweep on first down, then Warren was off to the races on a 70-yard scamper down to the Leland five.
Narragon hit the line for a yard, then went four yards for the touchdown on the next play.
The clubs traded the football before Leland picked off a pass and threatened to retake the lead. But it was Warren who stepped in again to turn the momentum the Wildcats' way.
Warren intercepted a pass and returned it 62 yards into Leland territory. Torres tossed 23 yards to Winkelman and 19 more to Krug to set up Narragon for a one-yard TD run.
"At that point, we felt like we were starting to take control of the game," said Cattolico, whose club led 14-7 at intermission.
The clubs traded possessions in the third period before Torres took a keeper 20 yards to the Leland 30. A play later, Narragon followed a fine block by Winkelman to go 30 yards for a touchdown.
A 30-yard Torres toss to Winkelman and an 11-yard run by Smith set up the day's final touchdown, a one-yard blast by Narragon.
Ben Frazier kicked all four extra points for Gatos and also boomed a couple of kickoffs into the Leland end zone.
"He did a heckuva job," said Cattolico of his senior place-kicker. "He's looking really good."
Gatos will try to make it two straight this week when the Wildcats play their home opener, a 7:30 p.m. game on Sept. 17 against Leigh.
"It ought to be an interesting ballgame," said Cattolico. "Leigh's a darn good football team."
Leigh opened the season with a 19-13 win over Palo Alto last Friday.
"Defensively, we've got to play well," he added, "and hopefully our offense with play better."
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
