Like a sandcastle that was built too close to the ocean, the Fremont Firebirds’ dreams of a perfect football season and an undisputed El Camino Division championship were washed away by a tidal wave of Homestead Mustangs points last Friday night at Diesner Field.
Sparked by junior quarterback Jerome Holloway, who passed for two touchdowns and ran for two more, the Mustangs registered a season-high for points scored, burying the Firebirds 58-24 and creating a three-way tie for the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League’s El Camino Division crown.
Fremont, Homestead and Mountain View–a 47-0 victor over the last place Lynbrook Vikings–all finished the regular season with identical 5-1 records in league play to finish as co-champions.
Despite their season-ending loss, though, it the Firebirds who are now the only one of the three advancing to the Central Coast Section play-offs this week, thanks largely to their 9-1 overall record.
As the fifth-seeded team in Division I, Fremont has drawn Piedmont Hills, the No. 4 seed, as its opening round opponent in a 7 p.m. contest at Piedmont Hills. The Pirates, who are 6-4 overall on the season, finished tied for third with Leland in the rugged Mt. Hamilton Division of the Blossom Valley Athletic League behind division champ Oak Grove and runner-up Pioneer.
Interestingly enough, Fremont and Piedmont Hills have played only one common opponent this year–the Homestead Mustangs. The Pirates opened their 2014 campaign with an impressive 41-21 non-league triumph over the Mustangs back in September.
The Pirates’ four losses this season have come at the hands of Oak Grove (47-7), Bellarmine (56-20), Pioneer (55-28) and Leland (49-41).
The winner of Friday’s Fremont-Piedmont Hills game will advance to the semi-finals next week against the No. 1 Salinas (6-4)-No. 8 Menlo-Atherton (3-7) first round winner.
Mustangs win big
Against Homestead last Friday, the Firebirds raced out to a 12-0 first quarter lead on a 45-yard touchdown pass from Phillip Tran to Michael Valles and a 2-yard pay dirt plunge by Sam Sanchez. For Tran, it was his 23rd touchdown pass of the season, and his eighth scoring hook-up with Valles.
Homestead, however, would retaliate with 52 unanswered points, building up an insurmountable 52-12 lead by the fourth quarter.
A 27-yard field goal by John Rak followed by a 50-yard scoring strike from Holloway to Joseph Fariah got Homestead back into the game by the end of the opening period, cutting Fremont’s lead to just 12-10.
Holloway, who passed for 118 yards and rushed for 23 more, put the Mustangs ahead to stay with a 4-yard touchdown romp that ignited a 21-point second-quarter outburst.
Shortly thereafter, defensive back Preston Heen turned the game completely around when he scooped up a Firebird fumble and returned it 78 yards for a touchdown.
Holloway completed the Mustangs’ second period eruption by reaching the end zone again, this time from two yards out, to increase Homestead’s halftime advantage to 31-12.
Homestead, which is 7-3 overall for the year, put up another 21 points in the third quarter thanks to a pair of Rajah Ward touchdown runs sandwiched around a 17-yard touchdown toss from Holloway to Joseph Fariah. Holloway has thrown for 12 touchdowns this year. Although it was just Fariah’s eighth reception of the season, it was his team-leading fifth TD catch.
Following Ward’s second score, Rak tacked on his seventh extra point in seven attempts, making him a perfect 37 for 37 for the year.
Fremont, attempting to stage a miracle comeback, received fourth quarter touchdown runs of one yard by Tran and nine yards by Kahileigh Creamer, to cut the Mustangs’ lead to 52-24. But Ryan Allemandi, who carried five times for 29 yards, put the finishing touch on Homestead’s impressive win with a 10-yard touchdown dash.
Overshadowed somewhat by Homestead’s prodigious 58-point explosion–which was 37 more than Fremont’s defense had allowed in any of its previous nine games–was a stellar defensive effort led by Heen (10 tackles) and Sebastian Knoefel (7 tackles). Including Heen’s return for a touchdown, the Mustang defense recovered four Firebird fumbles and held Fremont to its second lowest point total of the season (Fremont’s season-low came in a 22-12 non-league win over Woodside back in September).
Three-way tie
The Mountain View Spartans took advantage of Homestead’s upset of the previously unbeaten Firebirds by destroying the winless Lynbrook Vikings to claim a share of the El Camino title.
The Spartans piled up 460 yards of total offense–236 on the ground, 224 through the air–to deal Lynbrook its 10th consecutive loss of the year. The Vikes finished 0-6 in SCVAL play. The loss marked the first time this season that the Vikings had been shut out.
Mats top ‘Tino
In other SCVAL action, the Monta Vista Matadors concluded their season on a high note, racing past the Cupertino Pioneers 30-7 in a non-divisional clash.
The Mats, who finished 1-5 and in sixth place in the SCVAL’s De Anza Division and 3-7 overall, received a spectacular performance from senior Sam Nastari in their season finale against Cupertino. Nastari carried the ball just nine times but broke loose for 137 yards (15.2 yards per carry) and three touchdowns.
Monta Vista led just 7-0 at halftime on the strength of a 37-yard second quarter touchdown run by Max McCann and Amir Bashti’s extra point kick.
But in the third quarter, the Matadors exploded for 17 unanswered points, as Nastari scored on TD romps of 13 and three yards, and Bashti tacked on two more PATs and a 35-yard field goal. Nastari’s two scoring bursts were set up by an interception and a fumble recovery by Monta Vista cornerback Pranav Iyer.
Nastari, who had a total of just three touchdowns in the Mats’ first nine games before scoring three in one night, put the icing on the cake in the fourth quarter with a 91-yard touchdown run, giving Monta Vista a 30-0 lead.
Cupertino wound up the year 2-4 in El Camino Division play and was 5-5 overall.
King’s wins title
The King’s Academy completed a perfect 5-0 season in the Peninsula Athletic League, wrapping up the Lake Division championship with a hard fought 35-27 triumph over the Jefferson Indians at home.
The Knights, 9-1 overall for the season, are the No. 1 seed in the CCS Division IV play-offs, opening up at home against eighth-seeded Terra Nova (4-6) Friday night in a 7 p.m. tilt. The winner will meet the winner of the Carmel (7-3)-Half Moon Bay (7-3) match-up in the CCS semifinals next week.
Against Jefferson, the Knights employed a devastating ground assault that accumulated 217 yards en route to their win over the Indians.
Freshman Maurice Washington, making his first varsity start, was the star of the night, rushing for a game-high 137 yards on 16 carries, and scoring three touchdowns. Washington scored on runs of 18, 24 and 13 yards.
Quarterback Dominic Sabel threw for 170 yards and a touchdown, a 54-yard TD toss to Derek Friske, and defensive end Fidel Nunez returned a blocked punt 27 yards to account for the Knights’ other scores. Brian Field was 3 for 3 on extra point kicks, and Daniel Arellano added a two-point conversion on a pass from Friske.
Defensively, Jordan Duncan had a fumble recovery and an interception, Jaret Falkowski had two of the Knights’ five quarterback sacks, and Mark Miclean, Colin Mai and Nunez each recorded seven tackles for King’s.
