Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Young Wildcats open season with a victory

By Dick Sparrer

The difference in the final score was close... less than a touchdown, in fact.

But the difference in the game when the Los Gatos frosh-soph battled the San Lorenzo Valley junior varsity last Saturday was like night and day.

Los Gatos beat SLV just 20-16, but that was only after the young Wildcats had opened up a 20-0 in the final period.

With a three touchdown lead, head coach Scott Downs pulled his starters, but San Lorenzo struck fast for two scores, "and all of sudden it was 20-16," he said.

The Gatos starters took the field again and moved the fall to run out the remaining time and secure the victory.

"I still don't know how good we are," Downs said, "but we had some kids play awfully well."

One of them was sophomore running back Derek Smith, who carried 21 times for 105 yards and three touchdowns. He also caught a pass, and ran in for a 2-point conversion.

Smith scored on runs of five yards and one yard early in the game, then broke one 38 yards for a touchdown in the fourth.

Another offensive star for the Los Gatos Wildcats was freshman quarterback Trent Edwards, who completed six-of-12 passes for 119 yards in his first high school game.

"I'm impressed," Downs said of Edwards. "He's everything I'd hoped he'd be."

Edwards completed a couple of passes to Joey Warren and one each to Smith, Scott Soucy, Ben Shanker and Markus Willard.

Freshman running back Charlie Clark supported offensively with four carries for 27 yards.

Downs was pleased with the effort of his offensive front of tackles Matt McNerney and Greg Nielsen, guards Mike Vyhnal and Adam Toeniskoetter and center Joe Lynch.

"They were huge, both on offense and defense," Downs said of SLV. "They outweighed us by 15 to 20 pounds a guy, but we did an excellent job up front."

Defensive tackles Matt Benedetti and Kevin Reilly were also singled out for strong efforts along with free safety Adam Dallas, strong safety Jason Rosa and inside linebacker John Glage.

"The defense played marvelously," Downs added.

The Cats will try to make it two straight this week when they take on Oak Grove on Sept. 18, at 5:15 p.m., at San Jose City College (it was erroneously reported in last week's paper that the game would be played on Thursday).

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