Serra hurdles HMB in CCS opener

Serra (10-1 overall) took a 14-7 deficit into halftime, but emerged from the locker room an invigorated team, scoring three touchdowns in the third quarter, while the Padres defense held the Cougars to eight plays and one first-down in the penultimate period.

“We just knew we got punched in the face in the first half,” Serra two-way standout Terence Loville said. “So, we just knew we had to come back and respond in a big way.”

For the second straight week, the Padres fell into a two-score hole in the first half. Serra couldn’t overcome a similar 14-point deficit at St. Ignatius in the final week of West Catholic Athletic League play, coming up short in a 14-13 loss that cost them a perfect regular-season record.

Half Moon Bay, though, did finish with an unbeaten 10-0 overall record in the regular season — the only CCS team to do so — and looked poised for an upset with an opening drive for the ages.

The Cougars (10-1) opened the game at their own 20 after Serra senior Damon Lewis booted the opening kickoff into the end zone for a touchback. Snapping the first play with a full 12 minutes on the first-quarter clock, Half Moon Bay proceeded to fight its way downfield for a 23-play, 80-yard scoring drive that took 12 minutes, 3 seconds — spanning the entirety of the first quarter — with the Cougars scoring on the first play of the second quarter on a 3-yard touchdown run by junior Connor Quosig.

Half Moon Bay totaled three third-down conversions and three fourth-down conversions on the drive.

“The recipe is don’t get too many yards on any of it,” Cougars head coach Keith Holden said. “It’s 23 plays, so that tells you you’re getting 4 and not 8 or 10. … And the good news for us is we ate up the clock and then we converted on some fourth downs, which was huge for us because it kept their offense off the field. … So, it’s just exactly how you draw it up.”

While the Serra defense ultimately held Half Moon Bay to 264 total yards of offense, the opening drive may have affected the Padres’ offense more than it did the defense.

Serra head coach Patrick Walsh said the Padres had planned to open the game with senior slot receiver Nate Sanchez taking snaps out of the wildcat offense. It was three weeks ago when the Padres turned to untested sophomore quarterback Dom Lampkin in the wake a season-ending shoulder injury to the odds-on-favorite to grab WCAL Player of the Year honors, senior quarterback Daylin McLemore.

With Sanchez also starting in the defensive secondary, however, the senior rolled his ankle during Half Moon Bay’s lengthy drive. So, it ended up being Lampkin to lead the Padres’ offense when they finally took the field eight seconds into the second quarter. Despite the Padres coming out with a seven-man front, including 6-6 senior Nusi Malani at tight end, three straight Lampkin runs got corralled for negative net yards to force a three-and-out.

“We’re still learning a lot about our team,” Walsh said. “… Our leader and our quarterback went out a couple weeks ago, and it’s not until the bullets start flying that you understand what a line can do, a group of receivers with a new quarterback. So, we’re still a young team. We have a sophomore back there. So, we almost have to feel our way through the game in that circumstance. And frankly, our defense has been bailing us out on that all year.”

Half Moon Bay continued grinding away on offense, using nine plays to go 65 yards for a touchdown. Sophomore quarterback Will Moffitt — who led the Cougars with 147 total yards, 114 passing and 32 rushing — steered the triple-read option for heartier gains, capped by a 9-yard scoring run by Quosig (14 carries for 69 yards) to spot the Cougars a 14-0 lead.

Serra then changed the prevailing vibe at Freitas Field in the breadth of one play on its ensuing drive.

Pivoting from their jumbo package to the spread offense, the Padres got slapped with a quick holding penalty, but followed with Lampkin exploiting a 1-on-1 matchup 47 yards downfield with a perfect timing loft to Loville (four catches, 104 yards and a TD) to advance to the HMB 13-yard line.

“Dom knows if it’s 1-on-1 with any corner in the league, I’m either going to come down with it or no one’s going to,” Loville said. “So, we just have that trust in each other.”

Loville — who made his varsity debut as a sophomore in the 2017 postseason — said that trust comes from he and Lampkin working together this year in practice, even before McLemore got injured.

“I’ve worked with him personally for so much time just to get him ready for big moments like this,” Loville said. “… Really during the whole season because we knew if something bad ever happened, he had to be ready.”

Four plays later, Lampkin (195 total yards, 153 passing, 42 rushing) scrambled in for a 9-yard score, cutting the Cougars’ lead to 14-7 by the half.

“When we had that answer at the end of the half, I knew that was a good sign for us,” Walsh said. “… I knew if we could tie the game up … then it could go back to even and maybe if we could get them out of their base plays, and bleeding the clock, that would put us into the position that is favorable for us because we have a pretty good pass defense.”

In the second half, Serra came out swinging.

Lampkin opened with a 14-yard dash off the left tackle, then completed passes of 9, 4 and 12 yards. Then on fourth-and-6 from the HMB 24, the Padres produced their first of two monumental fourth-down conversions in the game with Lampkin hitting Loville on a 24-yard scoring slant for tie it 14-14.

The Serra defense then stepped up with a three-and-out, and went on to hold Half Moon Bay to just 42 rushing yards in the second half.

“We just do us in the third (quarter),” Serra junior linebacker Fynn Williams said. “That’s our motto. … Honestly, that’s just the Serra mindset. Play in the third (quarter), no matter what.”

The Padres got the ball back at midfield. Then, after a third-down conversion with an 8-yard pass from Lampkin to Loville, Serra went on to spring a fourth-down conversion with a fake punt. Lewis lined up to kick it away, but instead locked and loaded for a 27-yard pass to junior Christian Pederson to sustain the drive. After a 14-yard pickup by junior running back Vince Poni, Sanchez at last took his first wildcat snap of the game and scampered in for a 2-yard score, giving the Padres a 21-14 lead.

The lead change jelly-legged the Cougars, who quickly altered their offensive approach by going to the air. Two plays later, it resulted in Loville coming up with an interception, the first of three thrown by Moffitt in the game. Loville said the Padres lined up wrong, with him at cornerback to defend the slot, then identifying an open wide out as the ball was snapped.

“So, I had to run all the way across the field,” Loville said. “So, when he called ‘hike,’ I was at midfield. So, I knew I just had to sprint all the way over there. I read his eyes though, and I knew he was going to throw there, so I just had to jump on it.”

Loville advanced the interception to the HMB 9. Sophomore running back Hassan Mahasin then took his first two carries of the day, scoring an impressive touchdown on the second one with a 9-yard dash, finished by hurdling a grounded defender across the goal line to put the Padres up 28-14.

In the fourth quarter, Sanchez added a defensive touchdown, intercepting a pass near midfield and returning it 51 yards for the score, showing no ill effects of the turned ankle by out-flanking the pack to get into the end zone.

“As soon as I saw him pick it off, I saw it on his face,” Loville said. “He was like, ‘I just have to get in the end zone.’ So, I just started sprinting with him downfield and was like, ‘I’m doing everything I can to get him in the end zone.’”

Serra added its final score in the closing minutes with a 10-yard pass from Lampkin to Mahasin.

Senior defensive back Adrain Primo closed out the day by grabbing Serra’s third interception.

“I think they made some plays, they executed,” Holden said. “We made some mistakes, they capitalized on those mistakes. Tip your cap to them. They’re the best team in the WCAL. They play good football.”

The 1 p.m. start time marked the first afternoon game the Cougars have played this season.

“After the first half, I think some of our guys were gassed,” Holden said. “I’m not trying to make excuses. But I think you get gassed, you lose focus. And they’ve got too many athletes to lose focus.”

The Padres now advance to host another afternoon game. Serra will welcome No. 5 Wilcox in the CCS Division I semifinals this Saturday at 1 p.m.

Said Walsh of Wilcox’s high-tempo run attack, exemplified by senior Paul Rosa who rushed 35 times for 171 yards last Friday in the Chargers’ 42-35 overtime win over No. 4 Menlo-Atherton: “I see double [tight ends], a bunch of angry human beings and angry structure, that it looks like we’re going to have to dial it up again next week.”

Division II

Sacred Heart Prep 27, Bellarmine 7

The No. 4-seed Sacred Heart Prep Gators (8-3) totaled six sacks and kept No. 5 Bellarmine (3-8) off the scoreboard for the first 47 minutes Saturday to advance to the CCS Division II semifinals.

Junior quarterback Teddy Purcell got the Gators on the board in the first quarter with an 11-yard touchdown pass to J.P. Frimel. Tevita Moimoi added a 1-yard rushing score in the second quarter, and Wilson Weisel ran for a 5-yard score in the third. Ronan Donnelly booted two 42-yard field goals: one in the second quarter, and another in the fourth to give SHP a 27-0 lead. Bellarmine scored its only touchdown with under a minute in regulation on a 30-yard pass from Wade Smith to Reese Burrill.

Senior defensive tackle Thomas Hardy led the pass rush with a career-high three sacks. Moimoi, a linebacker, added two, and junior linebacker Cav Williams had one.

The Gators advance to play at No. 1 Los Gatos Friday night at 7 p.m.

Division III

Burlingame 20, Mountain View 10

It will be a showdown of two Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division teams in the CCS Division III semifinals with No. 6 Burlingame traveling to No. 2 Terra Nova Friday at 7 p.m.

The Burlingame Panthers (6-5) rallied behind another big rushing performance by junior Lucas Meredith to upset No. 3 Mountain View (7-4) in the quarterfinals. Meredith soldiered for 180 yards rushing on 19 carries and two touchdowns. But it was Elijah La Guardia’s 2-yard touchdown score that gave the Panthers the lead 13-10 in the final minute of the third quarter.

Meredith initially gave Burlingame a 7-3 lead in the first quarter — after Mountain View jumped ahead on a 34-yard field goal by Josh Lillie — breaking an 87-yard touchdown run. But Mountain View jumped ahead in the third quarter on a 7-yard score by Julian Daniels.

Meredith put the game away, scoring on a 15-yard run with 2:12 remaining.