APTOS — The clock was ticking down, Pajaro Valley High was up by 30 and the Grizzlies were just a few kneel downs from their first win of the season but their sideline was eerily silent.
“There was about one second left and our coaches were like, ‘hey, you guys are going to win,’” said Pajaro Valley first-year head coach Kevin Cordova. “Our guys were like, ‘Huh? What?’ That’s how you can tell how young of a team we are.”
P.V. not only secured its first win of the season and of Cordova’s head coaching career with a 30-0 victory over Lynbrook High at Carl Conelly Stadium on Saturday but the youthful Grizzlies also learned a thing or two about how to deal with a win.
Overwhelmed with the victory, Cordova’s players didn’t quite know how to take a knee in victory formation, they forgot to lineup at the 50-yard line to shake hands with the other team before being herded to midfield by their coaches and they didn’t give Cordova a congratulatory ice-water bath for his first-ever win.
“That’s one thing I hope they don’t learn,” Cordova joked, referencing the ice-water bath. “I don’t need them to learn that one.”
With only eight of its 27 players holding prior varsity experience, P.V. (1-3) is still learning the smaller aspects of the game of football.
But they say experience is the best teacher, right?
“This is a pretty big thing for us,” said junior running back Mauricio Suarez. “It’s our first win. We were coming off three big losses…This is Cordova’s first win with us this year, too. We know it means a lot to him.”
Cordova spent last season as the Grizzlies’ offensive coordinator but was promoted to head coach after the retirement of Joe Gregorio, who led Pajaro Valley for half a dozen seasons before stepping away. Cordova’s first three games at the helm didn’t go as planned but the fourth was more to his liking.
At least the final score was.
“We didn’t play a great second half — it was very, very ugly the whole second half,” Cordova said. “I told them, ‘I could pretend like you have been here but you haven’t yet this year.’ Hopefully, we’ll get another win this year and they’ll know how to act.”
While the Grizzlies weren’t overly impressive after the intermission, they looked just fine before it. Behind the tough running of Suarez, P.V. scored on its first four possessions to jump out to a 22-0 lead at the half.
Suarez ran for 143 yards and two scores over the first two quarters alone and also had a 76-yard sprint into the end zone called back because of a holding penalty. His 11-yard touchdown run with 4:44 left gave the Grizzlies complete control of the game heading into the break.
“My O-line, they were doing their assignment, they were getting their blocks and I just hit the hole hard,” said Suarez, who, like several Grizzlies, dealt with lower leg cramps in the third quarter but returned in the fourth.
Suarez finished with 209 yards rushing and the two scores on 32 carries.
Senior wideout Diego Navarro ran for 60 yards on five carries, including a 38-yard score on a sweep in the first half.
Navarro also nailed a 28-yard field goal in the first quarter and hauled in a pair of interceptions on defense. Both of his picks came in the end zone, helping P.V.’s defense preserve the shutout.
The Grizzlies’ defensive front bottled up the Vikings’ (0-4) rushing attack, allowing only 35 yards on the ground. Coached by Alan Vinciguerra, Lynbrook had so-so success through the air, passing for 153 yards, and worked its way into the red zone twice in the fourth quarter but the P.V. defense made a stop on each occasion.
“Our defensive line was being a lot more physical than they have been in the past,” said senior defensive end Irepan Romero, who led the defensive charge with a pair of sacks and five tackles for loss.
P.V. junior quarterback Max Arevalo was 4 of 9 for 71 yards passing and a big chunk of his total came on a 43-yard score to Marco Bermudez during the third quarter.
A Lynbrook self-inflicted safety just minutes later completed the scoring.
“It feels really, really good to finally win for once,” Romero said. “It’s kind of like getting a burden off our shoulders in a way. Like coach said, it feels really, really good but it doesn’t really mean much because this game wasn’t in league. We have that to look forward to now.”
P.V. begins its Monterey Bay League Pacific division slate with a big challenge at Christopher High in Gilroy next week. Christopher is 4-0 and has victories over playoff teams Live Oak High and Carmel High on its resume.
The Grizzlies said they know they’ll have their hands full with the Cougars but they hope Saturday’s victory sparked something that had not been there before.
“This is a confidence boost,” Romero said. “It’s better morale and all that.”
