The Wilcox Chargers football team beat their rivals, the Santa Clara Bruins, by a huge margin this past week, as they seem to do every year. With an end score of 42-0, it might have seemed like neither team could learn much from this game.
However, both teams learned important lessons from how it went. We will have to wait and see if both the Bruins and the Chargers can learn from this game.
Even though the Bruins lost badly, the most important thing to remember is that they had a few big plays.
Joseph Manueli took the first kickoff of the game all the way up to the 40-yard line. The junior tailback ran very well on almost every kickoff return after that.
After his first good return to start the game, quarterback Tayshawn Reed made a nice 15-yard pick on the ground. With that, the Bruins were in Chargers territory on the first play of the game in an instant.
The Bruins would rush down the field again later in the first half, but this time the drive would stop. They had a chance to cut the Chargers’ lead to 14–7. It took Santa Clara all the way down to the 1-yard line before they lost the ball just before the goal line.
Reed also did a great job getting a first down on a 4th and 7 when he ran for eight yards. What the Bruins should learn from this is that if they can avoid hits against a top-level team like Wilcox, they should be able to beat any team in their division.
On the other hand, Wilcox probably wouldn’t have had much trouble beating a lower-division team if not for one pass play.
When the Chargers play, they like to run the ball a lot. This year, a young junior named Kai Imahara is starting at quarterback. Imahara was running hard to the left corner late in the first half to get away from the Bruins’ pass rush.
The young quarterback was able to stop his momentum, twist back, and get a downfield pass to receiver Semaj Clark.
It’s amazing that Imahara can twist his body back the other way well enough to get even a half-good throw off. Clark also made the catch even though he was flagged for pass interference. The Santa Clara defender was already hitting Clark when the ball came in, but Clark still caught it.
For the Chargers, this shows that these kids can make any play on the field as long as they work hard and focus. It doesn’t matter how hard the throw or catch is.
The next week Wilcox (3-2) will not play. Then, on Oct. 12, they will play Menlo School in the first game of their league schedule and try to use what they learned in the first half of the season.
Santa Clara (1-3) will play Woodside on Oct. 4 in the first game of the league season and try to use what they’ve learned so far this season.
