APTOS — With arguably the top football player in Santa Cruz County out with an ankle injury, Aptos High needed several things to go right in order to keep its hopes of winning its fifth Central Coast Section championship alive.
Things only got worse.
Depleted of playmakers on both sides of the ball, No. 2 Aptos hung around with No. 7 Terra Nova High but ultimately fell 24-14 in the first round of the CCS Open Division III playoffs.
Down 10 heading into the fourth quarter, Aptos (7-4) marched down the field and into Terra Nova (6-5) territory. Facing a fourth-and-goal from the 3-yard line, sophomore running back Vaughn Holland took a pitch and lunged for the end zone but came up just inches short of pay dirt with 8:56 left to play.
The Mariners got the ball back with a little more than four minutes left but their final possession, and season, ended on an Alex Pera interception.
“Our defense stepped up,” said Aptos junior quarterback Hunter Matys. “Our offense needed to step up. We just had a lot of all-around errors on our part.”
Already missing junior running back and linebacker Marcos Reyes and junior linebacker Silvano Lopez to injury, Aptos was stripped of several more starters as the night went on.
Blake Wheeler, the team’s best receiver and defensive back, exited in the first half with a knee injury and finished the night on the bench with his helmet off and a sweater draped over his shoulders. Starting corner Desmond Mendoza tried to play through an ankle injury he suffered in the first half but wound up sitting next to Wheeler with a bag of ice over his foot.
Senior running back Will Murphy gutted through a leg injury but did not carry the ball once, instead being used as a decoy.
“Marcos is 70 percent of our offense,” Aptos head coach Randy Blankenship said of Reyes, who had more than 1,600 yards rushing and 18 touchdowns in the regular season. “I’m disappointed for these seniors.”
Matys picked up the slack and rushed for scores of 14 and 49 yards, while sophomore fullback Josh Powell plowed ahead for 144 yards rushing on 16 carries.
Aptos dipped deep into the depth chart as it started losing players. Along with Holland, junior Bubba Gallardo, normally reserved for defense, also carried the ball and freshman Christian Mendoza, moved up to varsity for the playoffs, got a couple of carries.
“Everyone who stepped up and played tonight did the best they could,” Matys said. “We moved the ball the best we could…losing them just made other people step up.”
The next-man-up mentality worked in spurts but the Mariners never recaptured the same magic they had during their impressive run to second place in the powerful Monterey Bay league Gabilan division.
Terra Nova senior quarterback Nathan Gordon diced up the Mariners’ secondary and finished with 282 yards passing and a pair of scores. He made his money attacking the middle of the field but also let it fly over the top on his two touchdown passes. He hit Richard Walls for a 16-yard touchdown on their opening drive, and then gave his team an eight-point cushion heading into the half by connecting with Jackson Kubal on a 47-yard catch-and-run down the visiting sideline.
Aptos tied the game up on its first possession out of the half on Matys’ 49-yard touchdown run and Powell’s two-point conversion.
Terra Nova answered quickly with a 26-yard field goal from Collin Utler and Brandon Auelua’s 89-yard touchdown run on the final play of the third quarter made it a 10-point game heading into the final stanza.
The Mariners had their chances late but Terra Nova’s defense stepped up to help the Tigers advance to the semifinal round.
Terra Nova, a four-time CCS champ, had lost four of its last five games and finished tied for fourth in the Peninsula Athletic League’s Bay division. The recent losses did not affect the Tigers’ confidence in the least bit.
“Once you get to the CCS playoffs its a whole new season,” said Gordon, who also rushed for 47 yards. “It doesn’t matter what your record is. Whoever wants it more is going to get the win. Today, our team really wanted it.”
Gordon and the Tigers play No. 3 Palma next week.
The Mariners had hoped to win their CCS first round game for the sixth straight season and felt confident about their chances of advancing to their fifth championship game over the last six seasons. But the muted offensive attack and an inexperienced defense, which allowed 223 rushing yards, proved too much to overcome.
“You got to have bullets in your gun,” Blankenship said. “Hats off to them. Their quarterback and their receivers did a great job.”
Aptos will graduate 20 seniors.
