For the second time in three years—down to the exact week—Live Oak will travel up to South San Jose to take on Oak Grove with the winner taking control of its own Mt. Hamilton Division destiny.
In the strangest year in the Blossom Valley Athletic League’s top division in years, the top two teams will collide with one league loss each.
In years past, the winner (usually the Eagles) went undefeated to capture the league title.
This year, Oak Grove suffered a stunning loss to Santa Teresa. Live Oak played a spectacular defensive game against Westmont, but lost 9-7.
Now both teams are on a roll and both are eying to take control with two games to follow for both teams.
“We’ve turned the corner a bit, but we’ve got a big one next week,” said Live Oak coach Mike Gemo.
With four teams just one game back of the leaders, the loser will be mired in a battle for an automatic bid into the CCS playoffs.
Oak Grove sits at 3-4 overall and 3-1 in league play.
The Eagles have yet to score more than 28 points in a game and its highest margin of victory is 21 points after defeating Pioneer 27-6.
But while this may not be the juggernaut of years past, Oak Grove is on a two-game winning streak and is starting to limit opposing teams’ offenses.
Oak Grove will come at Live Oak with a pair of backs who are coming into their own as the season progresses.
Elijah Dominguez leads the team with 472 yards with Gabe Chavez with 321 yards.
Meanwhile, Live Oak is coming into the game on a streak of its own.
Win over Santa Teresa
The Acorns just dispatched the same Santa Teresa team that knocked off Oak Grove 35-0 thanks to a defensive stand of the year.
At the close of the first quarter into the second, the Saints went on a 64-yard, 17-play drive that included a fourth-down conversion.
But the Acorn defense rallied to send Santa Teresa backward and settle for a 33-yard field goal attempt. The kick came up short, landing just underneath the cross bar.
Live Oak turned around and went 80 yards on 18 plays capped with Cole Davis two-yard run.
That turned a potential 14-3 game—or even a 14-7 game—into a 21-0 score at the half.
“I think our defensive coaches did a great job of making an adjustment to stop their power game,” Gemo said. “We proved no matter what they do, we’ll be able to stop them.”
From there, it just came down to whether the defense would continue to make stops.
The defensive and offensive lines were stout the entire night, keeping Singleton upright for the most part while constantly harassing the Saints’ playmakers on the other side of the ball.
“Nice that the line was pushing people around and we were able to run game and get our passing game off of that,” Gemo said.
Santa Teresa was held to 15 total yards rushing and 94 yards of total offense.
“I think our front seven did an excellent job of getting into the back field and clogging up lanes,” Gemo said.
The offense was slow to get moving in the second half. Singleton took three sacks in the first two series, the only sacks he took in the game.
But the defense continued to hold.
Santa Teresa went three-and-out in the same stretch, eventually setting up the Acorn offense to put the nail in the coffin.
After getting the ball back on the Saints’ 45, Live Oak went the stretch on five plays capped with Singleton extending a play on fourth down and eventually finding Gustaveson for a 19-yard TD.
Gustaveson caught the ball inside the five and bull rushed his way into the endzone for a 28-0 lead.
He said initially he ran his route but wasn’t able to find an open spot for Singleton to throw to. Eventually he saw a soft spot, ran to it and caught his quarterback’s eye for the touchdown.
“That felt really good because that whole game they were talking,” Gustaveson said.
AJ Gustaveson went for 79 yards rushing and touchdown and a receiving TD.
“I’m proud of him. As much as he’s been doing this year, he finally got in the endzone. It was a great job. He made a great catch there at the end and finished off the run in the endzone. It was a good job,” Gemo said.
Singleton threw for 103 yards on just 6 of 13 passing.
Live Oak put the game away on Santa Teresa’s ensuing possession when Jaime Martinez intercepted Jordan Cortes and took it back for a touchdown and a 35-0 lead.
Jacob Neumeyer picked off Cortes on Santa Teresa’s next possession and that led to a running clock.
