Gators are Greater

Photo Credit: Deonte McCall

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Written by Trent Bastian

It seemed like everything was going right Friday night under the lights, until the game actually started. The portable lighting provided by the David Tinsley Memorial Fund failed to shed any light on the “Bad News Bears”.

The Bears lost to the Sacred Heart Gators 48-14 in front of hundreds of eager fans expecting a newly renovated offense.

If the Bears want to revamp their style of play, they should take notes from Sacred Heart’s explosive offense which averaged nine yards per play; most of which came courtesy of Matt Walter’s 110 rushing yards and Chris Gaertner’s 132 all-purpose yards.

The Bear’s offense was lead by Alofangia Sakalia’s 119 rushing yards including a six-yard touchdown run. Jonathon Hoech’s 112 passing yards ignited the Menlo-Atherton 12^th man, who were pleasantly surprised by Hoech’s performance after losing the first three starting quarterbacks to injury.

The first ever meeting between Sacred Heart and Menlo-Atherton couldn’t have come at a worse time. M-A (1-7, 0-3) has not found a rhythm all season; the only victory came against Leigh High School 21-20. Sacred Heart (6-2, 3-1), however, has become a perennial PAL powerhouse behind Matt Walter’s 11-yards-per-carry average.

One small victory Friday night was the Menlo Atherton 12^th man club’s vociferous performance which provided a louder audience than Sacred Heart’s “white out”, consisting of what looked like only 20 white t-shirts sitting together.

Menlo-Atherton has lost by an average of 31 points per game in their seven loses, the majority of which is scored in the first half.

Now that the Bears are mathematically out of playoff contention, they’ll need to adopt new strategies. They have already started 290 lb. Stephen Fafita at running back. They have started a total of five different quarterbacks. On Friday night against the Bears, they featured a run-heavy formation, but that resulted in 19 pass attempts regardless.

New strategies the Bears should consider trying: punt the ball every first down, ask for mercy, and cry themselves to sleep.

In all seriousness, the Bears are preparing for the PAL-leading Terra Nova Tigers (5-4, 4-0) in Pacifica. Although it seems as if it will be the most lopsided league game yet, the Bears have a small chance, not much but still, a small chance.

Terra Nova narrowly beat the winless Woodside Wildcats 17-14, who the Bears have yet to play. It seems as if the November 13^th game against Woodside will be the Bears’ best chance to win their 2^nd game of the year.

1. Michael Abramson Says:
   November 4th, 2009 at 8:52 pm

   I like the way you think outside the box. In all seriousness though, we should try a new strategy. My suggestion would be running a trick play on every down; hook and ladder, statue of liberty, behind the back pass, fake punt. Or we could put a guy like 25 yards back then throw the ball high in the air to him, kickoff/punt returns were more successful than anything else we tried

   [Reply]

2. michael scott Says:
   November 7th, 2009 at 12:30 am

   or we could just let the baseball team play against woodside next week…

   [Reply]