The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Trailblazer: Willow Glen's John Fernandez is off to the races after hauling in a pass from quarterback David Macchi. Fernandez caught nine passes for 145 yards and two touchdowns in Willow Glen's 34-14 win over Lincoln.

Rams are worth watching

Macchi, Fernandez lead Willow Glen to win against Lincoln

By Dick Sparrer

When the San Jose Mercury came out with its "High School Football '98 Forecast" feature last week, Willow Glen's David Macchi and John Fernandez were listed among the "Players to Watch." And the two Ram stars certainly didn't disappoint fans in the first week of the 1998 season.

They most certainly were players worth watching when the Rams opened the year with a 34-14 nonleague win over Lincoln at PAL Stadium on Friday night.

Macchi, a junior quarterback, completed 23 of 29 passes for 301 yards and three touchdowns, and Fernandez snagged nine of those passes for 145 yards and two of the touchdowns.

The two led the cast of Willow Glen's outstanding players that overwhelmed Lincoln in the first week of the young season.

The opportunistic Rams opened up a quick 14-0 lead with two first-period touchdowns against the Lions.

Lincoln had the ball first but fumbled on the second play from scrimmage, and Paul Sanchez recovered for the Rams. Two plays later, junior running back Mike Strangis blasted over from the five, and Willow Glen was up 6-0.

The Lions battled back, though.

"They got a pretty good drive going," said Willow Glen coach Bob Parker. "They moved down the field, but then they fumbled again."

This time it was Ruben Figueroa pouncing on the pigskin to get Macchi and the Willow Glen offense back out on the field.

Macchi led the Rams on a march down the field, capping the drive with a one-yard TD toss to senior receiver Nich Holt. Macchi hit Cory Hare for the two-point conversion, and Willow Glen held a comfortable 14-0 lead.

The clubs played a scoreless second period, with Lincoln dominating the football, and Parker wasn't altogether pleased that his Rams went in at intermission just two touchdowns ahead.

"Our tackling wasn't very crisp," he said. "We only had one semi-big hit the entire night. But we're not very experienced, and we were kind of standing around watching."

"Still,"he was quick to add, "we did enough good things to shut them out in the first half. We bent but didn't break."

The Rams upped their lead to 21-0 in the third period when Macchi found Fernandez for 17 yards and a touchdown. Holt kicked the extra point.

Lincoln returned the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown, but it was called back because of a penalty. The Lions, though, managed to drive for a score to cut the lead to 21-7.

Macchi and Fernandez went to work again after the kickoff. The two combined for a 46-yard touchdown passes, and the Rams were back in control 27-7.

Macchi engineered yet another drive that he capped himself with a one-yard plunge for a touchdown. Holt's kick made it 34-7 with less than a minute to play.

Lincoln scored a final TD with 10 seconds left, but it was too little, too late.

Fernandez led the receiving corps with his nine catches. Along with the two TD catches, he also had catches of 33, 10, 15, 11 and 14 yards that all went for key Willow Glen first downs.

Hare pulled down four Macchi tosses for 38 yards. Strangis caught three passes for 62 yards, Dave Estrella three for 32 yards, Holt three for 19 and Jon Ross one for five.

Strangis led the ground attack nine carries for 36 yards and the one touchdown.

Defensively, Parker singled out safety Greg Barone and defensive end Peter Panayotopoulos for solid efforts.

"Barone was one kid who played really hard," Parker said. "He stuck his nose in there. And Panayotopoulos had a couple of sacks. He played pretty tough."

Lincoln proved tougher than the Willow Glen coaching staff had expected.

"They were better than we thought," Parker said of the Lions. "They were pretty physical."

The opposition will get even tougher this week when the Rams travel to Cupertino to face Monta Vista on Sept. 19, 7:30 p.m.

"Monta Vista looks real tough," said Parker, who watched the Matadors take apart Yerba Buena 35-0 on Saturday night.

"They have a couple of bruisers, No. 10 (Ryan Mitchell) and No. 78 (Anto Ljoljic), and those guys just come after you."

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