It’s safe to say Live Oak’s running back Trevor Bearden is back to full strength. After battling an ankle injury throughout the first four weeks of the season, Bearden had a breakout, three touchdown performance in a 42-0 win over Mount Pleasant High School in the teams’ Santa Teresa Division opener Friday night in Morgan Hill.
The Acorns are coming off a bye week that Bearden said was the biggest contributor in the Acorns victory.
“That bye week we had last week helped a lot. I’ll continue with the physical therapy this week and I should be 100-percent by next week’s game,” Bearden said.
The junior rushed for 215 yards and added one reception for 37 yards to give him 252 yards on the night.
Bearden’s biggest play came on a 96-yard sprint to the end zone, one play after a Cardinals (1-3, 0-1) punt dumped the Acorns back in their own 6-yard line with 8:21 left in the second quarter to give the Acorns a 21-0 lead going into half time.
“That was a game changer right there. They pinned us back pretty deep and once we broke through, it was going to be pretty hard to catch that kid,” said Acorns head coach Mike Gemo.
The 96-yarder was Bearden’s longest play from scrimmage all season.
“We ran that play on the first drive of the game and someone just missed a block, so we just talked about it and made the change,” Bearden said.
“We got that block finally on my run. I know once someone got that block, I knew I was going to score. I felt a little weird at first because I haven’t run at full speed like that in a while. But I’m glad I was able to work well.”
After not scoring on their first three possessions, the Acorns (4-0, 1-0) got on the board with quarterback Taylor Turninpseed’s 52-yard down-and-out pass to Ben Nuno that gave LO a 7-0 lead with six minutes left in the first quarter.
“I just dropped back and the line gave me plenty of time, so I just threw it up and let (Nuno) make a play,” Turnipseed said.
Bearden added touchdown runs of 5- and 20-yards before his night was finished in the third quarter, when the Acorns reserve running backs entered the game.
The Acorns defense was simply stout, holding the Cardinals offense to just 94 total yards and forced two fumbles. More surprisingly, the Cardinals offense was only able to break into the Acorns’ territory just once throughout the entire game.
“Our defense has done a great job all season, and putting up a goose egg was pretty fun to watch” Turnipseed said.
Senior cornerback Jerado Caro added the most exciting defensive play of the night, an interception off reserve quarterback Andre Sanchez. He evaded would-be tacklers for a 60-yard march to the end zone, giving the Acorns a decisive 42-0 lead.
“I told the coaches once they had put me on defense after I had few penalties on offense last week, that I guess I would have to play offense on defense,” Nuno said jokingly.
With coach Gemo deciding to run the ball 30 times, Turnipseed was limited to nine passes, but completed six of them for 130 yards and two touchdowns, both of which landing into the hands of Nuno. Nuno lead all Acorns receivers with four receptions for 90 yards.
“With Trevor pounding the ball, the defense puts all eyes on him and it makes it easy to find guys wide open” Turnipseed said.
The win gives the Acorns their first league victory in two years, after going 0-7 in league last season.
“We are just proving ourselves to other teams in our league that we are the big team that we are the big team to beat around here.” Bearden said. “We know we just want to beat everyone and go undefeated and win CCS.”
Notes
The shutout marks the first time the Acorns have held an opponent scoreless since the 2006-2007 season, where the Acorns defeated Everrett Alvarez High School 14-0 on Septmeber 15, 2006. Along with Nuno’s touchdown interception, Matt Bergantz (two) and Nuno (one) helped lead a secondary that forced four Cardinals interceptions.
