Levi Stadium started the tradition of Friday Night Lights high school football games at the 49-ers home-field last year, with the double-header at the end of August, 2014.
It grew up to be a triple-header this year, with six local schools participating in the Sept 18 event.
The middle, 6 p.m. game, will square-off Scotts Valley High School vs. Watsonville High School. The last time these two played was in 2005, when both schools were still in the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League, and the Falcons won, 21-0. WHS was realigned in 2006, and play now in the Monterey Bay League.
Except perhaps in Texas, it’s hard to fill an over 60,000 seat stadium for a high-school football game. The fact that it’s a triple-header might help a bit, but reportedly each team guaranteed the Levi Stadium organization to sell at least 500 tickets or 1,000 total tickets. However, WHS has 3,000 tickets for adults and 2,000 for students according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, while SVHS has 1,000 student tickets and 500 adult tickets. If WHS sells 5,000 tickets and SVHS sells only 1,500 tickets then the two teams would have moved 6,500 tickets. That would leave 53,500 seats for other people.
In interviews with the Watsonville-Pajaronian newspaper, WHS players spoke about their entire extended families coming, including some flying in from the east coast. Scotts Valley’s community has such capability, too.
The tickets for the game went on sale Wednesday, August 19, at three locations in Scotts Valley and at least one in Watsonville:
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Rita’s Italian Ice in Scotts Valley, located at 222 Mount Hermon Road in the Nob Hill shopping center
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SVHS main office
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SVHS students store
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Carmona’s BBQ Deli at 1040 East Lake Avenue in the East Lake Village Shopping Center in Watsonville
The adult tickets are $20, students $5, but the best deal is a trip on a rooter-bus. It’s for students only, and for $20 includes a round-trip on one of two buses going to Santa Clara, a ticket to the game and a souvenir t-shirt [see image of t-shirt logo above]. A ticket for one of the High School games is good for the entire triple-header. Parking won’t be free, but as of press time, the 49-ers office could not quote a price except to say “it’ll be less than an NFL game parking fee.”
