The Acalanes JV football team was planning to play one quarter against the Oakland Varsity team on Friday. If that had been the case, the team would have only played one full game and a total of 50 minutes of football over 50,400 total minutes from the end of the Bishop O’Dowd game on September 2 until kickoff against Las Lomas on October 7, over which time several parents would have forgotten their player’s jersey numbers, and several of the players would have mourned the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, eaten everything in their parents’ pantries, gotten drivers licenses, learned the difference between a corsage and boutonnière, and grown beards.
But then Coach Burnsed got a call Friday afternoon from the Oakland coach letting him know that the Oakland JV team was at Acalanes and wanted to play, setting in motion a chain of events of coaches calling parents…parents calling players…players texting players (let’s be honest, they don’t call anymore)…parents rushing to get their players back to campus. Amazingly, the entire team was able to get there in time despite the last minute fire drill, quite an impressive feat.
Unfortunately, the pre-game fire drill provided the most drama for the day as the outcome of the game was pretty clear immediately when Alek Adolphson ran the opening kickoff for a TD. Although the play was called back by a penalty, Niko White ran for a 65-yard TD on the very next play, his first rushing TD of the season. The offensive onslaught continued from there. JB Frolich caught a TD from QB Jake Colaco, and Eitan Romick, Faisal Nabulsi, and Tyler Kim all also got their first rushing TDs of the season (Eitan would later get another rushing TD set up after a long completion from Jake to Alek). Statistician Matt Delaney also pointed out some remarkable numbers … the team had no 3rd or 4th downs all game, only possessed the ball for 4 minutes and 40 seconds taking into account the running clock, and only had 15 offensive plays.
Acalanes also dominated on the defensive side of the ball. Highlights included Eli Laird causing havoc on the line with a sack and run tackles for losses, sacks by Drew McKenzie, David Roux, and Jack Manful, and strong play in the secondary from Quinn Alvarado, Brody Darin, David Gonzales, Will Roberts, and a newcomer, German exchange student Gustav Zuwittgenstein. WR Tyler Kim also got to play on the DL for the first time of the season.
On special teams…in addition to Alek’s negated kickoff TD, he had a 40-yard punt return down to the Oakland 1-yard line that set up one of Eitan’s TDs. Niko also had a long punt return down to the Oakland 10-yard line, Jack Manful registered the first blocked punt for Acalanes on the season, and LB David Roux got his first extra point attempts of the season.
Although the team won easily, penalties and turnovers continue to be an issue. They hope to fix these mistakes as they open up league play at home on Friday, October 7 at 4:30pm against Las Lomas.
P.S. I wanted to give a big shout-out to the McKenzies, Drew (#67) for helping protect the QBs, Doug for helping me put away the Acalanes blow-up “A” and tunnel during the Varsity game, and Gina for being an awesome team mom and because she told me she wanted a shout-out (yes, I am easily persuaded).
