Fitzgerald brothers star in San Mateo football win

“He’s slowly getting back into it,” San Mateo head coach Jeff Scheller said of his bell cow running back.

Emmanuel Fitzgerald’s 16-yard touchdown run three plays into the second half held up as the winning score. Tyce Copus opened the drive with a 13-yard pickup on a toss, Emmanuel Fitzgerald rumbled for 48 down the sideline and went through the middle for the final 16 on the next snap.

A pair of fumbles prevented San Mateo (3-1) from pulling away, but the defense held its ground to prevent a loss to the El Camino Division Eagles for a second straight year.

“It’s frustrating, but a win’s a win. It’s a tough environment to get up in,” Scheller said of the sparse Thursday night crowd. “We talked about it during the week, but it’s funny to say, you can’t really simulate it.”

Levy Nguyen’s recovery of a ball stripped by defensive tackle Drew Newman at the San Mateo 28 gave Los Altos (1-3) a golden opportunity to retake the lead late in the third quarter, but an illegal hands to the face penalty on the following play took away the hosts’ great field position and led to a punt.

Nguyen also recovered a bad handoff with 6:33 left, and the Eagles crossed midfield a few plays later on a Colton Caputo run, but Dean Qutteineh and Logan Jandu sacked sophomore QB Giancarlo Mendoza on the next play for a loss of 8. An illegal substitution penalty left Los Altos with a fourth-and-21, and the ensuing pass play didn’t come close to the line to gain.

“It’s a team game, but the defense won this game,” Scheller said. “I apologized to them because we didn’t do more on offense.”

Two Jovani Hernandez first downs later, the game was over.

Despite reaching the 1-yard line on their opening drive, it was Yianni Fitzgerald’s pick-six that gave the Bearcats their first lead. San Mateo turned it over on downs after fumbling the snap on fourth-and-goal, but Yianni Fitzgerald, the middle of three brothers, was in the perfect spot to intercept a pass over the middle on the very next play for a nearly effortless 7-yard touchdown.

“I was shocked,” Yianni Fitzgerald said. “All the receivers were downfield, and he threw it right into my hands.”

Los Altos took a 7-6 lead in the second quarter at the end of a 15-play, 70-yard drive that took up 6:38 and saw the Eagles overcome three penalties as Mendoza found Caputo on the left side for a 22-yard score.

Mendoza completed 20 of 38 passes for 140 yards to compensate for a rushing attack that was limited to 30 yards on 13 attempts. Caputo, his favorite target, caught six passes for 61 yards.

For San Mateo, Hernandez ran eight times for 39 yards, Logan Davis had three carries for 32 yards and Tyce Copus ran three times for 22. The visitors didn’t complete a single pass but ran for 310 yards, averaging 6.6 per attempt.

“They’re so disciplined running the triple option that you can only assign a certain number of people to every option,” said first-year Los Altos head coach Mark Adams. “If someone gets a good block, there’s not enough people behind to make a play.”