Live Oak outscores Independence 14-0 in fourth quarter to earn
win
Morgan Hill – After having suffered two losses this season where it had a lead in the fourth quarter, the Live Oak High football team had a reversal of fortune Friday night, scoring 14 unanswered points in the fourth to earn a 21-13 Blossom Valley Athletic League Mount Hamilton Division win over Independence.
“This week we finished, unlike last week,” Acorns senior running back Kyle Abbott said, referring to Live Oak’s 28-21 loss to Branham in a game it led 21-13 entering the final quarter. “It’s a big improvement. We’ve got to keep doing it.”
Abbott, who once again led the Acorns with 142 yards rushing on 28 carries, scored the go-ahead touchdown on a well-executed pass play out into the flat that went for 17 yards. Quarterback Timothy O’Rourke, who had a season-high 72 yards passing, connected with Abbott for 21 yards on the same type of play to open the game and the added dimension of the pass appeared to be a big boost for the offense.
“It helped a lot, we got a lot of our yardage that way,” O’Rourke said. “We scored a touchdown on that one pass to the flat. We knew they were going to come hard after me so Kevin was going to be open in the flat.”
Abbott finished with 53 yards receiving on three catches, the final one going the distance with 6:07 left in the game to make it 14-13.
After the Acorns offense found the end zone for the first time since their first drive of the game, the defense took over. On the ensuing possession, Live Oak dropped Independence running back Jaleel MacKey for a 3-yard loss on second down and senior linebacker Eddie Gomez made the initial hit before a swarm of Acorns dropped 76ers quarterback Scott Landrum for a sack to force a punt.
“Once (the offense) scored it just got the defense all fired up and we just wanted to get the ball back for them,” Gomez said. “We were doing all we can trying to not let them score.”
Live Oak’s next drive stalled at the Independence 26-yard line and Jeff Mounteer’s 43-yard field goal attempt was about six inches to the right of the goal post to keep the score 14-13.
Independence took over at the Acorns’ 20 and on third down junior safety Kyle Hennings recorded his second interception of the game. Late in the third quarter he had an interception taken away because a play was blown dead before Landrum broke free and threw the pass. He responded by intercepting a pass on the next play.
“It was huge,” Hennings said. “We’ve only had two turnovers the whole year, we came up with three today.”
Senior cornerback Matt Ellis also had a diving interception with just more than nine minutes left to play in the game and the ball in Live Oak territory.
After Hennings’ second interception, the Acorns bumped the lead to 21-13 when Abbott scored his third touchdown of the day with 31 seconds left.
A good squib kick by Mounteer left Independence 84 yards from the end zone and a sack by junior lineman Joe Forestieri on second down was enough to run out the clock.
“We changed some things up, tried some other people late in the game and they made some plays,” Acorns’ head coach Rick Booth said. “They were able to get to the quarterback, something we hadn’t done in awhile. Instead of staying in man, we zoned it and fortunately we were able to predict what they were going to do.”
Junior Varsity
Morgan Hill – Live Oak stayed unbeaten in BVAL play with a 7-0 win over visiting Independence.
Billy Van Aiken scored the Acorns lone touchdown and Nick Priedite, playing his first full game of the season at quarterback, was outstanding in the win.
Anthony Della Maggiore and J.T. Wallace both had interceptions for Live Oak, which moved to 5-1-1 overall and 4-0.
