After last week’s 38-19 thrashing of the defending Monterey Bay League champions Christopher High, the Sobrato Bulldogs are quietly trying to quell any expectations entering the second game of the 2012 season against Gilroy High.
Meanwhile, the Mustangs, who lost 35-21 to Live Oak last week, will look to reverse a 3-10 non-league trend that dates back to 2009.
The two teams – facing each other for the first time – heading in different directions will clash at 6 p.m. Saturday at Live Oak.
“We are going to put in a defense that is geared toward that wing-T offense,” GHS head coach Brian Boyd said. “We know it will hurt if we fall to 0-2. We know Sobrato is a very good team. But we will compete and I expect the boys to come out with some fire.”
Regardless of Gilroy’s loss last week, Sobrato head coach Nick Borello expects to see a dynamic Gilroy team led by junior running back Brandon Boyd on the field Saturday.
“We expect to see a very good running back and a strong defense,” Borello said. “They have been an ‘A’ league team for a long time and they should be very good.”
To stop the Mustangs offense, Sobrato will need to key on Boyd, who ran for 151 yards on 15 carries last week.
“He is one of the best running backs we are going to face all year long,” Borello said.
For the Mustangs, they will need to stop a familiar foe – Michael Bocksnick. The Sobrato quarterback, a transfer from San Benito High, had an impressive start to his year last week. In the win over Christopher, Bocksnick threw for 248 yards while going 11-for-14 through the air. On the ground, Bocksnick ran the ball eight times for 63 yards.
Despite last week’s success, though, Borello expects a cleaner game from his squad.
“We won, but we made a lot of mistakes,” he said. “I expect us to clean a lot of that up this week. If we don’t, we aren’t going to see a lot more victories in the ‘W’ column. We need to improve from last week.”
