Ben Martin came up with the biggest play on Friday night that helped the Aptos High football team clinch a Pacific Coast Athletic League crown for the first time in four years.
Late in the fourth quarter, the 6-foot-3, 237-pound senior lineman made a game-sealing interception to knock off defending Mission North Division champion San Lorenzo Valley High, 17-14, in front of the home crowd on Senior Night.
“It means everything,” Martin said. “That was the greatest moment of my football career. We’re undefeated league champions. After last year, it feels really good.”
Martin was on his way to rush senior quarterback Brayden Scoma when he noticed the Cougar hurler was about to dump a short screen pass to the left. The Mariner lineman tipped the ball to himself and snatched it in midair for the turnover.
Game over.
“That was a hell of a game,” Aptos head coach Zach Hewett said. “[SLV] battled and gave us all that we could handle, and more. Hats off to them. They should have their heads held high.”
With the win, Aptos captured the PCAL Mission North Division championship with an unblemished 5-0 record in league play this 2026 fall season. It’s their 15th overall league championship.
Their most recent league title-run was in 2022 when they were tri-champion alongside Palma and Salinas high schools.
The Mariners were relegated to the Mission North after they went winless at 0-8 in the Gabilan Division in 2025. However, it might be a short stay as Hewett anticipates a promotion into the league’s top tier division in 2027.
Before they start thinking too far into the future, the Mariners will attempt to make a postseason run in the Central Coast Section playoffs. The seeding meeting takes place Sunday afternoon.
It’ll be Martin’s second trip to the playoffs. He was part of Aptos’ team that were Division III finalists, yet he didn’t see much time on the field as a sophomore.
“I’m just happy to be able to get into a game in CCS,” he said. “We’re just gonna be taking it one game at a time and preparing for the next team.”
Martin said the defensive line and secondary units began to unite following a rigorous nonleague portion of the schedule. They squared off against formidable opponents in The Kings Academy, Soquel and King City high schools, going 1-3 during that stretch.
“We learned a lot from that,” Martin said. “Going into the [league] season, we were really prepared for everything…just overall, we’ve gotten a lot better since then.”
Martin mentioned that he, along with his teammates, weren’t going to accept playing poorly the way they did, which he saw in Friday night’s game against SLV.
“But we pulled through it again,” he said.
SLV’s defense, especially the defensive line, proved to be troublesome for the speedy Mariner offense, which wasn’t able to muster any points in the second half until with about one minute remaining in the game.
“I’m not trying to make excuses, but the Senior Night maybe gave us a little slower start,” Martin said. “But maybe we just needed to prepare a little better, just go into it with a little harder mindset and just to know that SLV is going to give us competition.”
Senior River Cook broke free for a 50 yard run to the Cougars’ 6-yard line, while senior Preston Carvalho capped off the scoring drive with a rushing touchdown that put Aptos ahead at 17-14.
“It’s no surprise that on Senior Night, seniors are making big plays all over the place,” Hewett said.
Carvalho tallied 125 rushing yards and a pair of touchdowns, including a 69-yard score on the second play from scrimmage for the Mariners. But, he had to fight to get each one of those yards he gained.
“Their defense is good,” Hewett said. “[Jacob Hardin] made a bunch of really nice run-throughs as their linebacker on a lot of stuff. We had them fooled with some misdirection stuff going, but they kept adjusting and adjusting and adjusting really effectively.”
Matthew Huizar added a 27-yard field goal just before halftime, which was set up after a botched snap on a punt attempt by SLV.
The Cougars also received the short end of the stick in the first half when the defense scooped up a an apparent fumble for a touchdown. But, it was called back due to an inadvertent whistle blown by an official.
The play was called an incomplete pass instead of a backwards toss, prompting SLV head coach Dave Grant to have words with the white hat.
“I don’t want to sit here and blame the refs,” he said. “We needed to run the football at the end, and it really came down to if we could have gotten one or two more first downs, we would have eaten the clock, and that’s on us.”
In the third stanza, SLV took its first and only lead at 14-10 when junior Jesse Fulkerson found the end zone from 5-yards out.
Scoma put the Cougars on the scoreboard with a 1-yard touchdown in the second quarter, while teammate senior Nico Brasuell recorded one interception.
SLV has a chance to make the CCS playoffs as runner-up in the Mission North Division, and they’ll require some outside help.
They need St. Francs (2-7, 0-4) to take down Scotts Valley (5-4, 2-2) on Saturday afternoon in order to remain alive.
If not, the Falcons will hold the tie-breaker because of their victory against SLV in the league-opener Oct. 3.
“I just love the way they freaking brought it tonight,” Grant said. “It was everything that we asked them to do. Now, it’s not up to us. Let’s see what happens tomorrow and we’ll go from there.”
