With a fourth-straight Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League championship and postseason tournament berth on the line, the Scotts Valley football team rose to the challenge last weekend, beating Soquel 34-31 in a game that remained in doubt until the final play.
With the win, eighth-seeded Scotts Valley will square off against Carmel, the top seed in the Division IV field of the Central Coast Section playoffs, at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21, in Carmel.
The Falcons and Knights headed into the locker room at halftime knotted at 14-14 on Nov. 14. The Falcons’ Jake Bergman was the first-half hero with a 75-yard touchdown scamper that coach Louie Walters said later was an “ESPN highlight-worthy run.”
The second half started rough after a third Soquel rushing touchdown and a field goal pushed the score to 24-14. The Scotts Valley offense failed to respond, going three-and-out the first two times it had the ball.
A third unsuccessful Falcons drive seemed in the offing late in the third quarter, as Scotts Valley failed to gain on a third-and-10 from the Knights’ 23-yard line, bringing up fourth and long from what was clearly outside the Falcons’ field goal range.
But Scotts Valley was called for a penalty on the play, which the Knights accepted, giving the Falcons a third-and-20 from the 33. Quarterback Blake Jurich faded back deep on the next play and threw a bomb into the end zone, and receiver Ryan Estrada juggled it but finally caught it as he fell to the ground for a touchdown.
“That was confusing,” Walters said of Soquel’s decision to accept the drive-prolonging penalty. “I don’t think we would have done that.”
After that game-changer, the Falcons’ defense forced a three-and-out, and the offense came alive for what was arguably Scotts Valley’s best quarter of football all season.
Jurich marched his squad 68 yards on its next possession, putting the Falcons up 27-24 after a 2-yard touchdown run by Bergman.
Soquel answered with a touchdown of its own, giving Scotts Valley the ball back as it trailed 31-27 with a little more than four minutes remaining and the season on the line.
Jurich proved masterful when his team needed him most, hitting Bergman, Estrada, Stephan Galewski and Aldin Barrett for big pass plays and picking up a key first down himself on a third-and-long scramble. He capped the drive with an 11-yard touchdown strike to Barrett with 38 seconds left, putting Scotts Valley up 34-31.
In the remaining time, Soquel drove to the Scotts Valley 27, but their 44-yard field goal try with 2.7 seconds remaining was short and wide, giving the Falcons the win, a league championship and a postseason birth.
“If we can play like we did in the fourth quarter for a whole game, we’ll be tough for anybody to beat,” Walters said.
Scotts Valley will need every bit of that fourth-quarter magic against the Carmel Padres.
The Mission Trail Conference champs are 9-0 this year and boast an explosive offense, having outscored their opponents, on average, by 51-9. But they’ll play under pressure — Carmel has never won a CCS playoff game, and the Falcons have trounced them in the teams’ previous two postseason faceoffs.
Walters likes how his squad matches up against the Padres.
“Their strength is the passing game, and our strength is our secondary,” he said.
Carmel quarterback Devin Pearson has recorded 1,648 aerial yards this year, notching 23 touchdowns with only three interceptions. But the team also has to watch running back Dylan Hopkins, a 1,000-yard-rusher expected to be one of the fastest backs Scotts Valley has faced all year.
“We’ve had success against Carmel in the past, but this is by far their best team that we’ve seen,” Walters said. “It should be a great game.”
