Menlo-Atherton football overcomes 20-point deficit, beats Bellarmine

Jurrion Dickey was a spectacle in his M-A debut. A senior transfer from Valley Christian, Dickey played full time both sides of the ball, and was a force on offense. The 6-3, 215-pound receiver went for 239 total yards and four touchdowns, including a leaping 20-yard scoring grab — that was part Julio Jones, part Baryshnikov — with 2:06 left on the clock to put the game away.

“I can’t think of another person that would come in like he has in pretty much two weeks’ time and done and learned all the things he has, not just on offense but on defense,” Menlo-Atherton head coach Chris Saunders said. “He played the whole game on defense. His IQ, his ability to study and dive into it, he’s special in that way.”

It was the Bears’ ability to course correct on defense that won the day.

After last year’s 56-41 victory by the Bells — an explosion that saw then junior running back Ben Pfaff rush for 206 yards and four touchdowns — the Bears were haunted by their old nemesis in the first quarter. As a senior, Pfaff earned the first two scores of the day Saturday, bouncing off tackle for a 34-yard TD run with 4:26 left in the opening period, and four plays later breaking a 34-yard punt return for a touchdown to make it 13-0.

Bellarmine (0-1) then ran circles around M-A’s pro-style secondary in the second quarter.

Bells quarterback Nate Escalada connected on a play-action pass over the middle for Parker Threatt to bust an 87-yard TD. M-A scored its first points on a 50-yard scoring run by Dickey midway through the second quarter, but the Bells fired back two plays later with Escalada hitting Colin Lakkaraju for a 55-yard touchdown pass, putting M-A behind the 8-ball of a 27-7 deficit with 4:13 to play in the half.

“It was four big plays in the first half,” Saunders said. “We take out those four big plays — which is probably a coach’s favorite thing to say, right? — and we felt pretty good about it. We misaligned, didn’t cover their athlete on a play action; punted the ball out of our coverage on a tight punt, a backed-up punt situation; and we didn’t defend a certain concept we had worked the way we had talked about it. And there you go. There’s those points.

“Give credit to Bellarmine, they jumped on it,” Saunders said. “Each time, they jumped on our mistakes. That’s why they’re a good program.”

But the reigning four-time Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division-champion Bears are a good program too. They’re a great one, in fact. And with Saturday’s comeback, M-A proved it is poised to continue the tradition of greatness.

Senior quarterback Billy Johnson — in his first varsity start after the departure of PAL Bay Division Offensive Player of the Year Matt MacLeod — made his mark, going 19-of-26 passing for 247 yards and four touchdowns. And Johnson and the M-A offense took advantage of a critical Bellarmine miscue just before halftime.

The Bears were forced to punt after a three-and-out, but Pfaff proved mortal by muffing the punt reception, allowing M-A to recover the fumble near midfield with 2:33 to go in the half. It took Johnson just two plays to turn the opportunity into points, thanks to the first of what is sure to be a prolific highlight reel of amazing catches by Dickey this season, as the senior tracked a lofty throw toward the sideline, came back for it to outleap two defenders, then landed and spun on a dime to bolt up the sideline for a 47-yard touchdown.

“My whole mindset as soon as I caught it — honestly, I thought I was going to get tackled — but in that one second right in front of me, I just thought to turn it up,” Dickey said. “And I saw a dude coming at me, he hit me, the only thing I was thinking about was: ‘I’m not going down, and I’m not stepping out of bounds; I’m scoring this ball.’”

Then M-A’s defense found its footing. Senior defensive lineman David Tangilanu showcased his rushing prowess with two sacks and a batted pass between the end of the first half and the beginning of the second.

“He’s a beast,” Saunders said. “He literally is a beast. He’s got a couple offers right now still on the table, and we’re hoping a few more come in for him. He’s 6-5, 255, so he just got in pass-rush mode and was able to get back there and disrupt.”

Tangilanu’s second sack near the start of the second half forced Bellarmine to punt out of its own end zone. M-A took over at the Bells’ 41. Three plays later, senior running back Sherrod Smith exploited a relaxed three-man defensive front by bursting off the right edge for a 20-yard scoring run, closing the deficit to 27-21.

A Bellarmine three-and-out gave M-A the ball back at its own 35. A 20-yard pass from Johnson to Dickey moved the Bears across midfield, and the next play saw senior running back Noah Garcia-Standlee bolt through the right side untouched for a 43-yard scoring run.

“No misdirection,” Johnson said. “It was a normal outside handoff. I handed it to him, and I looked and said: ‘Damn. That’s going to be a touchdown.’”

After the Bears took the lead on Dash Franklin’s point-after conversion, they immediately added on when, on the next play from scrimmage, senior cornerback Kameron Hawkins intercepted Escalada’s pass for a pick-6, upping the lead to 34-27 midway through the third quarter.

The Bears got the ball back near the end of the quarter and turned a third-and-16 dilemma into showtime for Dickey. The Bells surely regretted accepting a holding penalty on the previous third-and-13 play — a 7-yard catch by Garcia-Standlee would have left the Bears looking at fourth-and-5 — as Johnson used the second chance to hit Dickey over the middle for an explosive 63-yard scoring jaunt.

The Bells made things interesting, marching 60 yards on seven plays to score on a 12-yard Pfaff run with 6:47 remaining, closing it to a one-score deficit at 41-33. But M-A was able to answer, sustaining its final drive with a clutch third-and-8 pass from its own 22, as Johnson escaped the rush by rolling right and hitting senior Jayden Moss near the sideline for an 18-yard pickup.

“I think that was a really, really important play,” Johnson said. “Because Bell got a little momentum back, and we showed them who was in charge again. … It was a tough play, and you punt back to them with six minutes left … who knows what happens?”

The Bears used 11 plays to march downfield, and averted disaster when junior tight end Alek Marshall recovered an M-A fumble at the Bells’ 14 with just under three minutes to go. On the ensuing play, Johnson tossed up a jump-ball for Dickey (six catches for 171 yards, five rushes for 68) who turned in a graceful and athletic 20-yard touchdown catch in tight coverage in the front corner of the end zone to seal the win.

“We were looking at the score like it was 0-0 and we just played our heart out,” M-A defensive end Khayri Jett said of M-A’s comeback. “Even though it was the first game, and we got off to a bad start, we didn’t want that to hurt our motivation. So, we had to keep pushing.”

In six head-to-head season openers between M-A and Bellarmine dating back to 2016, the teams’ records are now split at 3-3 apiece.