One game at a time.
It’s how Live Oak is treating this season and thus far, it’s worked.
The Acorns quickly forgot the loss to Christopher and have since rattled off three straight wins, including a 34-6 win over San Jose last week.
Live Oak now faces a much stiffer challenge when it takes on Westmont at home tonight for homecoming.
“They know this is a big game for us in terms of how we’ll end up in league and how it will help propel us into the playoffs,” said coach Mike Gemo. “The kids really want to work hard this week and get ready to win a football game Friday night.”
Westmont is smarting from a 28-27 loss to the previously winless Lincoln.
“They played Lincoln tough, and they’re probably going to come out fighting even harder now,” Gemo said.
The Warriors trailed 28-21 going into the fourth quarter. Westmont scored in the final frame to pull within one, but missed the conversion attempt and took the hard loss.
Despite the loss, Westmont was only blown out once, a 23-0 loss to Willow Glen. Every other game was either close or a blow out in the Warriors’ favor.
“They’ve got a good physical offensive line that gets off the ball and protects the quarterback well and helps the offense click,” Gemo said.
Westmont will feature a strong passing game with sophomore standout AJ Mintz leading the charge.
He has 554 yards passing through four games played, including 259 against Lincoln.
“It’s going to be up to our front seven to make sure we read our keys correctly and know where they’re going with the ball and get pressure on the quarterback,” Gemo said.
Gemo said Mintz is able to move well in the pocket and doesn’t make mistakes in his decision making.
Mintz will look to three receivers to get the offense moving.
“They spread their offense out pretty good and throw the ball around,” Gemo said. “Then they come back at you with a little run play.”
Mark Derobertis will be the featured running back, having rushed for 482 yards through five games.
When he gets going, Westmont will blow out opponents. Both times he’s broken 100 yards on the ground have been in the Warriors’ most lopsided wins — 145 yards in a 62-0 win over Del Mar and 155 yards in a 42-7 win over Evergreen Valley.
Defensively, Live Oak will have to stand tall coming off a stellar performance the previous week that featured several turnovers.
Brandon Sorce was the surprise of the game, with 10 tackles, which led the team along with Ryan and Kyle Quadros.
“I don’t like my DBs having 10 tackles, but I’m glad he was there to have them,” Gemo said.
This game will go a long way toward taking control of the Santa Teresa Division.
Westmont’s second loss of the season last week was its first in league. That dropped the Warriors a game back of Live Oak, who stands at 2-0 in the Santa Teresa Division.
The Acorns are tied for first with Silver Creek. And although Live Oak will run the gauntlet this week and next, Gemo doesn’t want his boys getting ahead of themselves: Win this week and don’t even think about next week.
“One game at a time. The next one is the only one that counts,” Gemo said. “We haven’t looked toward Silver Creek yet. We haven’t talked about Silver Creek yet. We’ve talked about beating Westmont on our homecoming.”
Live Oak continues to see improvement from Erik Ornduff, who threw for 128 yards and two scores. It was the first time Ornduff broke past 100 yards throwing since Week 1 against Gilroy where he threw for 228 yards and two scores in the 52-41 offensive explosion.
“We just keep trying to develop him. He made some mistakes Friday night that he’s going to learn from and he also had a few balls that should have been completed,” Gemo said. He’s developing nicely.”
As the Acorns work to establish their passing game, it can only bode well for their run game, in particular Trevor Bearden’s push for the career rushing record.
Bearden is No. 18 in the state in yardage, which includes running backs who have played one or even two more games than the standout Acorn.
Bearden’s 1207 yards this season puts him 755 yards behind career record holder San Mateo’s Toke Kefu with 5,439 yards.
Bearden’s average yards per game needed to break the record is down to 151 — three less that he needed to average a week ago.
Bearden just might be able to accomplish that this week.
While Westmont has only allowed 80 points through five games and has yet to yield 30 to any one opponent, the Warriors are susceptible to the run.
In three games for which stats are available, Westmont has given up nearly 300 yards in all three games and a rusher who broke 100 yards against them.
Lincoln had two.
Last year, Westmont had a beastly time trying to contain Bearden, watching the back amass 352 yards and five touchdowns.
