South City football tops Jefferson to break the streak

That’s where the losing streak ends. Friday night, with a 20-18 win at neighboring Jefferson, the South City Warriors celebrated their first victory since the end of the 2017 season.

“It was crazy,” Moro said. “Everybody was ecstatic. … We were tired of reading in your paper 0-24, 0-25 then it was 0-26. It just went crazy.”

It was a controversial win, though, as Jefferson nearly pulled off a comeback of epic proportions. Trailing 20-6, the Grizzlies recovered a fumble inside their own 5-yard line, only to march downfield and score on a pass from Tyler Taylor to Raymond Tsang with under two minutes to go.

Tsang recovered an onside kick for Jeff and the Grizzlies quickly went on the march again, and with seconds to play closed the score to 20-18 when Taylor punched it into the end zone for six points. The Grizzlies had to try for the 2-point conversion and appeared to get it on a keeper by Taylor. One referee signaled the score, and the scoreboard read 20-20 while the referees conferred before ruling the conversion attempt failed.

“It sucks,” Jefferson head coach Sergio Portela Jr. said. “We’re young. I guess it’s a teachable moment, it’s a learning moment. We’re trying to rebuild what we’ve got … but I’m definitely proud of my guys for battling back. But it’s definitely disappointing that the call on that 2-point conversion went the way it went.”

South City defensive tackle Junior Langi emerged the hero on the controversial 2-point conversion play, as the junior recorded the tackle, meeting Taylor at the goal line.

“I just see Langi’s arm pulling the guy back,” Moro said.

Despite the controversy, Portela was congratulatory toward South City, a school three of his assistant coaches have ties to. Jeff offensive coordinator Eric Moore and assistant coach Oscar Reyes both played at South City, and assistant coach Ivan Moore coached there during Moro’s previous tenure.

“I’m really, really happy for Coach Moro,” Portela said. “Football is better in the area when Jefferson and South City are both good. … I’m happy and excited to see Coach Moro getting that program back where it was. … All the love in the world for those guys.”

Technically, the Warriors’ last win came Nov. 10, 2017, in a forfeit over Woodside. The previous week, Nov. 4, 2017, was the last time South City won a game on the field, prevailing 36-6 over El Camino in the rivalry Bell Game. The following season, however, the South City football program, that had long, proud winning tradition, made an unprecedented change at the top, hiring an off-campus head coach — meaning, a coach that does not teach at the school — for the first time in the school’s history.

In three years from 2018-20, three different head coaches rotated through the program. All three were off-campus coaches. Moro, who previously served as head coach from 2002-13 — during which time South City made three Central Coast Section playoff appearances — served as the school’s athletic director for several years and continued to work there as a physical education teacher.

Last year, Moro noticed several students on campus who fit the mold of a high school football player. One of those students was current sophomore Elijah Fields. For Moro, having the vantage as an on-campus teacher allowed him to recruit the athletic Fields.

“Oh yeah, I saw him in PE and just kept asking him, just kept following him,” Moro said. “Then we just made a concerted effort to get guys.”

Fields accounted for two touchdowns in Friday’s win. He scored in the opening seconds from the linebacker position, taking a pick-6 to the end zone to give the Warriors a 7-0 lead.

“He had a great game,” Moro said. “He was big on the ground too. He was our go-to guy.”

In the fourth quarter — after placekicker Josue Duran-Martinez booted a pair of field goals — Fields scored South City’s last points in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter to give his team a comfortable 20-6 lead.

“We could have put it away,” Moro said. “We were moving the ball … but Jeff fought back.”

South City has one other sophomore on its varsity roster in Darren Miller, whose father Dave played at South City in the 1990s when Moro was an assistant coach on Ben White’s staff. Moro said he was selective with promoting sophomores to the varsity team, because fielding a junior-varsity team is essential to reestablishing the football program overall.

The win for Moro was his first since Nov. 16, 2013, in a 29-23 rivalry win over El Camino.

“I was hoping the win would come earlier because it just gets the monkey off our back,” Moro said. “And if we would have lost this one, I didn’t want them to lose faith.”