Whatever questions swirled around Christopher this season and its loss of key players due to graduation blew harmlessly away Saturday.
Sobrato, meanwhile, struggled to get into an offensive rhythm early and eventually Christopher’s depth proved too much in a 52-12 rout to open the season.
The Cougars, who graduated three of its four leading receivers and its leading rusher from a year a go, amassed 469 yards of offense. That included 288 passing yards from Matt Adamkiewicz, which included four touchdowns.
“We came into this game knowing we were going to have a tough season,” Adamkiewicz said. “You have to come out working, you have to come out positive and as long as you keep working hard, good things will happen.”
Adamkiewicz also scored two more TD on the ground, punching the ball in from one yard out both times.
The defense meanwhile, so stout a year ago under the leadership of Jacob Moen, showed it could be just as prolific.
“I really, really like the way our defense played today,” said coach Tim Pierleoni. “I think a big question mark is our defense and I think our defense did an excellent job today.”
The CHS defense held Sobrato to 169 total yards of offense, most of which came on two plays and both coming in the third quarter.
“Our guys, I think were ready to play football,” Pierleoni said. “We were ready to go. We put in a lot of hard work in the off season … and we were really prepared for what they were showing us.”
Sobrato coach Tony Holmes stressed that his team needs to remember what it practiced during the summer and in the week leading up to the game.
He said he didn’t change his play calling from the beginning to the end, it just came down to execution.
“We’ve just got to work on our fundamentals. We’ve got to be more fundamentally sound,” Holmes said. “What they ran was nothing more than what we’ve already seen. We knew what was coming. They (Christopher) knew what was coming, but they executed.”
Holmes said his boys need to take advantage of opportunities as they come.
“Our guys will regroup and they will get better. They have no choice, they will get better,” Holmes said.
With the game firmly in hand by halftime, Sobrato’s Matt Bolino hit Michael Sutter on a screen pass in the third quarter that went for 55 yards and the Bulldogs’ first score of the game.
Christopher had called an all-out blitz and Sutter got by the lone defender between him and the end zone and scored easily.
That was also Sobrato’s fifth first down of the game, including one early on in the same drive thanks to a Christopher personal foul penalty.
“We normally kind of start late, but it was kind of disappointing that it took us two quarters for us to finally turn it up a little bit and it wasn’t our full potential yet,” Bolino said.
The weird thing about the play was it almost got called off.
Sobrato coaches had tried to get Bolino to switch the play, but the quarterback didn’t hear the change and ran the screen on fourth down.
It worked.
The Bulldogs’ next possession nearly became their fifth to not result in a first down when they went for it on fourth and one from their own 38.
A handoff to Darius Wheeler nearly ended in disaster when he was hit in the backfield. But Wheeler didn’t go down and eventually used his shifty moves to elude the defense and went in for a 62-yard score.
While those back-to-back possessions were the best of the day for Sobrato, they bookended Christopher’s lone third quarter touchdown, which effectively put the game out of reach.
Sobrato attempted an onside kick following its touchdown, but the ball failed to go 10 yards, giving the Cougars the ball on the Bulldog 45.
Eleven plays later, Adamkiewicz found Xander Bowers in the corner of the endzone on a pass that fell perfectly into the arms of the tall receiver, just out of reach of the defender who was draped all over him.
Pierleoni said he’s going to look at Bowers as a key weapon going forward, utilizing his high and reach to beat teams’ best defenders.
“We know Xander is a weapon. When you’re six-foot-five and you can jump out of the gym like he can … we feel confident a lot of guys are going to have a hard time with him,” Pierleoni said.
After Christopher was stopped for just the second time of the day, the Cougars forced a turnover when it recovered a fumble near midfield at the end of the third quarter.
That set up the Cougars on the Bulldog 43 and a short time later, facing fourth and 10 from the Sobrato 19, Adamkiewicz threw his final touchdown of the day, hitting Anthony Rodriguez for a 52-12 lead.
The play was highlighted by Adamkiewicz escaping pressure from the Bulldog defense and throwing into a tight window where the ball was nearly batted away.
It was that kind of day for both teams as Sobrato fell into hard luck and Christopher stumbled into plenty of good luck.
The lone exception to that came in the first quarter when Christopher went for a 22-yard field goal that just went wide left.
The Cougars never failed to score the rest of the first half.
Already leading thanks to Adamkiewicz completing the first of two touchdown passes to PJ Reichert on Christopher’s first possession of the game, the quarterback went to a silent count on the Sobrato 1 and drove the ball in on a surprise dive and 14-0 first quarter lead.
Christopher nearly made it 21-0 to end the first quarter, but an incomplete pass as time expired forced the Cougars to settle for a 30-yard field goal, this time kicker Octavio Llamas-Jimenez split the uprights for a 17-0 lead.
Adamkiewicz and Reichert connected again later in the quarter on a 38-yard strike for a 24-0 lead.
“I’ve been playing with him for three years now and he works really hard,” Adamkiewicz said.
Adamkiewicz made it 31-0 with 3:24 to play when he ran it in from one-yard out for a second time.
Christopher got the ball back from Sobrato’s first play from scrimmage after the TD when Anthony Lopez intercepted a bobbled pass and ran it back to the Sobrato 4.
Sobrato looked to catch a break three plays later when Freddy Mireles fumbled the ball trying to run it in from a yard out.
But center Brendan Lerma was Johnny on the Spot and hustled to the loose ball for a Cougar touchdown and a 38-0 halftime lead.
“He came up and picked up the ball up. His awareness right there, he knew the fumble went into the end zone and instead of letting them get a touchback and end up on the 20, he picked the ball up and scored,” Adamkiewicz said of the player he described as one of his best friends.
He added it was awesome to see Lerma score one of his only touchdowns of his high school career.
For the first half, Sobrato was held without a completion and just three first downs, one of which came on a Christopher penalty.
The other two came on the legs of Wheeler who had 38 yards rushing despite Sobrato recording just 29 yards of offense in the first half.
Two sacks drew down the yardage total for the Bulldogs.
But the second half, things began to click for Sobrato as quarterback Bolino completed his first five passes of the second half for 72 yards.
Wheeler finished with 102 yards and a touchdown. Bolino finished with 72 yards on 5 of 16 passing with a touchdown and an interception.
For Christopher, Adamkiewicz split his 288 yards among four receivers, including Reichert who caught nine passes for 86 yards, followed by Bowers who caught three passes for 79 yards. Dylan Olivares also had 76 yards receiving.
Olivares had 139 yards off total offense, also racking up a team-high 63 yards on the ground.
Up next for Christopher is Live Oak, who is coming off a 42-6 blowout of Gilroy. That game will be at Live Oak 7 p.m. Friday.
Sobrato, meanwhile, will lick its wounds and try to get its first win of the season against Gilroy at Christopher High School Friday night at 7:30 p.m.
“We just need to execute plays better and just do our jobs and the rest will come,” Bolino said.
Sobrato has a few injuries it will try to work through, including to key linemen and runningbacks.
Holmes also stressed that Christopher was very classy in victory. He said he appreciated Pierleoni for putting in his second and third string when the game got out of hand.
Pierleoni also called for his quarterback to take a knee with fourth down from the Sobrato 1 at the end of the game rather than making the score 59-12.
