High school football: Sacred Heart Prep kicks late field goal to beat Los Gatos in chaotic Friday matinee

ATHERTON — It was expected that Los Gatos and Sacred Heart Prep were going to play a close game. It turned out to be a chaotic classic.

In a game with more turnovers (seven) than punts (four) and scoring plays (three), Sacred Heart Prep kicker Sean Tinsley made an 18-yard field goal with 7.8 seconds left to give the Gators a 10-7 win over the Wildcats on Friday afternoon in Atherton.

In total, nine drives ended in opponents’ territory without points scored and there were turnovers on the first six drives of the second half. While each offense was able to move the ball, the defenses made plays when they needed to, keeping the score headlocked at 7 until nearly the very end.

“A lot did happen,” Sacred Heart Prep coach Mark Grieb said with a laugh. “I’m just so proud of the effort. There’s just no quit.”

Tinsley got a shot at a go-ahead 42-yard field goal with three minutes left, but a bobbled snap and subsequent hurried kick was blocked. The Gators used their final timeouts to get the ball back with 1:45 left, though it looked like we were heading for overtime when a Los Gatos sack set up third and 16 from midfield.

But Mitchell scrambled right and, instead of taking a sack or going out of bounds, took a knee before getting hit late by a Wildcat defender. The personal foul penalty gave the Gators 15 yards and a fresh set of downs and 15 yards, which they quickly used to drive to the goal line.

A first-and-goal rush from the seven with 20 seconds left was stopped in bounds at the 1-yard line and, with the clock running, the Gators appeared to have a snap infraction. But after a lengthy discussion, the four-man officiating crew penalized Los Gatos for being offside, which stopped the clock.

Grieb admitted he debated going for the touchdown, but he wanted to give Tinsley a chance to “be in that moment,” especially after pushing him to the edge of his range earlier. For Tinsley, he appreciated the shot at redemption.

“There’s always a bitter taste in my mouth [after missing],” Tinsley said. “There’s not a whole lot of pressure because it’s a tie game, but I obviously didn’t want to let the guys down.”

Tinsley made the kick, then hit a squib kick that Los Gatos fell on at their own 20, giving the Wildcats one final play with six seconds left to go 80 yards. Boyd’s heave for senior receiver Wil Brennan — who had three catches for 104 yards and Los Gatos’ only touchdown on the day — sailed out of bounds.

The Gators fumbled the ball to the Wildcats on their first three drives of the second half, each time in Los Gatos territory and each fumble closer to the endzone than the previous. The most painful one was the last one midway through the fourth, when quarterback Mitchell Taylor fumbled the ball at the 2-yard line, with the ball bouncing into the endzone and out of bounds to give Los Gatos the ball on a touchback.

“Our defense played great,” Los Gatos head coach Mark Krail said. “To hold that team to 10 points, as many times as we gave the ball to them on short fields, it’s a real credit to the guys on that side of the ball.”

But the Sacred Heart Prep pass rush made life miserable for Los Gatos quarterback Jake Boyd late in the game, forcing to scramble on nearly every dropback and sacking him three times to get the offense the ball back.

Shay O’Kelly was a standout like usual, tallying 11 total sacks, 1.5 sacks and a forced fumble. But he didn’t lead the team in sacks on the day — that was senior defensive lineman Eliseo Buffington, who used the attention given to O’Kelly to tally two sacks of his own.

“Every time that we had to go back on defense, I said, ‘Okay, we’re getting it back for the offense. We’ve got to do it for our offense — they worked for us, but they failed a couple of times, so we’ve just got to give them another chance,’” Buffington said. “I wasn’t mad at the offense at all, I just got it back [for them].”

Sacred Heart Prep (4-1) made offense look easy on the opening possession, methodically driving 80 yards in more than seven minutes. On the 15th play, junior Anthony Noto punched it into the endzone from a yard out for a touchdown.

Los Gatos (2-2) went three-and-out on its opening series, but started their second drive with a 60-yard bomb from Boyd to Brennan to get into the redzone. That drive stalled when a fourth down attempt was stopped a yard short — which turned out to be a theme for the afternoon.

Boyd and Brennan connected twice more for big plays on the next Wildcat drive, the first time when Boyd scrambled to his right on fourth and short near midfield and found Brennan near the sideline for a toe-tapping 17-yard gain.

On the next play, Boyd went over the defense for a streaking Brennan, who made the 27-yard touchdown catch to tie the game at 7 with 2:18 left in the half. Heading into half, Grieb said he felt that Los Gatos had the momentum.

But the Sacred Heart Prep defense was able to stifle the Wildcats from there, and in total, Los Gatos had two fumbles of its own and two turnovers on downs. Boyd was sacked six times on the day, too.

“We didn’t play very well. Our offense was bad. We really couldn’t get any rhythm running the ball. Throwing the ball, we didn’t have time to throw,” Krail said. “Not to come down too hard on my guys, but we have work to do. We had two good offensive performances in a row the last couple of games, and today we weren’t very good.”

It’s the fourth win in a row for the Gators after starting the season with a one-point loss to Sacred Heart Cathedral, a game Buffington called “one of the toughest losses I’ve ever faced.” Heading into a bye week, Buffington feels very confident in where the Gators can go from here.

“It just set a fire off in us, and now, our season is only going to get easier,” Buffington said. “I think this team is the best team we will play this season, and to beat them? Shoot, I think we can beat everybody.

“We’re confident, but we don’t want to be too confident, because that’s when you start to make mistakes. But I think we have an extremely talented team.”

Los Gatos will try to rebound next week when they host Milpitas to start PAL/SCVAL De Anza Division play. After their bye week, Sacred Heart Prep will begin their Ocean Division action on Saturday, Oct. 8 when Half Moon Bay comes to Atherton.