Football: Los Gatos holds on to beat Palo Alto in rivalry game

Wildcats wins key Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division battle

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LOS GATOS — The Los Gatos football locker room resembled a disco after Friday night’s game with colored light moving around on the ceiling and pulsating music.

The Wildcats had just finished defeating Palo Alto 29-22, and it was more than just a regular win for Los Gatos.

“I think it was a huge rivalry game, of course, but I think there’s more to it as in we needed to prove ourselves because we got blown out by Wilcox,” said Los Gatos quarterback Yost Girvan, who passed for two touchdowns and ran for one. “We just beat a good team, so we just want to prove ourselves.”

Los Gatos improved to 8-1 overall and 4-1 in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division. Palo Alto fell to 5-3 overall, 2-2 in De Anza Division play.

“They beat us twice last year, pretty handily,” said Los Gatos coach Mark Krail about Palo Alto, which bested the Wildcats in the opening round of the Central Coast Section Open Division I playoffs as well as in the regular season. “Our guys enjoy playing against Palo Alto. There’s some good athletes over there, and so we knew we had to play our best game and actually we didn’t, we made some mistakes, but still were able to overcome. Thought the defense played great tonight.”

Los Gatos’ defense grabbed three interceptions and limited Palo Alto’s ground game to 56 total yards. But the Vikings were within one touchdown of the lead with two minutes, 30 seconds to go after a 7-yard scoring pass from Danny Peters to Jamir Shepard.

Los Gatos’ Will Schweitzer dove on the ensuing onside kick by Palo Alto, and Adam Garwood ran for a first down to allow the Wildcats to run out the clock.

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“Obviously the outcome is not what we wanted, but the way they were able to battle back, particularly on that last drive, really showed a lot of heart and character,” said Palo Alto coach Nelson Gifford about his team’s play. “What I hope they can take away from it is that composure’s on us. The response to adversity is always on us, and we can’t get into the blame game.”

A wild first quarter started with Los Gatos taking the opening kickoff and driving 69 yards downfield, ending with a 5-yard touchdown pass from Girvan to Gian Lagemann.

Palo Alto answered back quickly with a 59-yard score on a pass from Peters to Shepard. The Fresno State-bound Shepard caught a game-high seven passes for 144 yards and two touchdowns. A two-point conversion run by Kevin Cullen gave Palo Alto an 8-7 lead, and then the Vikings gained possession of an onside kick.

But on the next play, Schweitzer grabbed an interception and returned it to the Palo Alto 21, leading to a 1-yard touchdown run by Girvan.

The score remained 14-8 until the third quarter, when Cullen pounced on the ball after an errant snap on a Los Gatos punt attempt and gave his team excellent position on the Los Gatos 2. Creighton Morgenfeld ran it in from there, and the point-after-touchdown kick by Alex Wang gave Palo Alto a 15-14 lead.

But Los Gatos, aided by two first downs on penalties, moved the ball down the field and took the lead for good on an 18-yard pass from Girvan to Jared Quandt. A diving catch by Lagemann on a two-point conversion pass from Girvan gave the Wildcats a 22-15 lead. On the last play of the third quarter, Adam Garwood ran for an 11-yard touchdown for Los Gatos’ final touchdown of the game.

In last year’s game, unruly behavior with the rival fans (which continued months later at a basketball game at Los Gatos) led to a ban of students from spring athletic contests between the two schools. In addition, the schools held a “Positive Sportsmanship Summit” in April at Fremont High in Sunnyvale.

While there didn’t appear to be any fan problems Friday night, the game had a decidedly chippy tone, with many penalties attesting to that.