From its opening possession in the Central Coast Section Division I championship game on Nov. 28 at San Jose City College, it became clear: the Serra High School football team wasn’t going to put the ball in the air.
On their first possession, the Padres ran the ball. On their second possession, they ran the ball. By their third possession, everyone in the stadium knew exactly what was coming—and Los Gatos still couldn’t stop it.
Power dive. Counter. Wedge. Sweep. Same alignment, same backfield action, same punishing physicality.
Again. And again. And again.
The Padres ran the ball on 58 of their 59 plays, accumulating 348 yards while possessing the ball for nearly 35 minutes of game time. It was football stripped down to bare essentials—blocks, leverage, pad level, grit. And Los Gatos, despite its speed and athleticism, despite its preparation and heart, found itself slowly squeezed out of the game like a wrestler caught beneath a heavier opponent.
Serra 28, Los Gatos 21.
The No. 3 seed Wildcats (9-4) had only six offensive possessions the entire night—scoring on three of them. Defensively, they didn’t play poorly; in the trenches, they were simply outsized against a Serra offensive juggernaut.
Serra told Los Gatos what it was going to do—and did it anyway. The No. 2 seed Padres (8-5) exacted payback after losing to the Wildcats 14-7 in last year’s postseason. The rematch was shaping up to be a repeat result, especially after Los Gatos took a 21-14 lead with 2 minutes, 23 seconds left in the third quarter.
However, Serra scored the final 14 points of the game to seal the outcome. Senior wide receiver Max Thomas ended his prep career with a fine performance, hauling in five passes for 94 yards, including a spectacular 32-yard TD catch that saw him outleap a Serra defender near the left pylon.
Having turned a 14-7 deficit into a 21-14 lead, Los Gatos seemingly was on its way to victory. After all, the Wildcats entered the season with something rare in the prep game—a sense of destiny. It wasn’t arrogance. It wasn’t hype. It was the quiet confidence forged during early-morning weight-room sessions, August practices under a punishing sun, and the commitment of a senior class that had been playing together for several years.
Week after week, the Wildcats proved they were one of the elite teams in the CCS. They executed on offense with precision—balanced, explosive, unpredictable. Their defense swarmed to the ball with relentlessness and ferocity.
By the end of the regular-season in mid-November, their resume was as good as anyone’s outside of West Catholic Athletic League champion Riordan: a 7-3 overall record, including 5-0 to win the ultra-competitive Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division championship. That earned Los Gatos the No. 3 seed in the Division I playoffs, where it opened with a 14-7 win over St. Francis before mauling previously undefeated Palma, 45-21.
So, with a seven-point lead over Serra and momentum seemingly on its side, Los Gatos looked as if it was going to fulfill its destiny and win its second Division I title in three years. It wasn’t meant to be. The Padres answered with a clinical 16 play, 78 yard drive to make it 21-21.
They forced a three-and-out on Los Gatos’ ensuing possession and promptly drove down the field for the go-ahead TD with 2:57 remaining. The Wildcats had one last opportunity, but Serra’s ball-hawking secondary picked off Callum Schweitzer for the second time to clinch the outcome.
Schweitzer completed 11-of-19 passes for 159 yards, while Grayson Doslak rushed for 61 yards on 16 carries. Defensively, Hudson Schrader, Austin Krug, Devonte Troutt, Lane Newman and Jimmy Childers each had a tackle for loss. Schrader led the way with 21 total tackles.
Newman was instrumental early coming off around the edge and preventing the Serra tailbacks from picking up huge chunks of yardage. Krug had the team’s lone sack, and Troutt had a fumble recovery after Jared Newman stripped the ball from a Serra player.
True, the final score didn’t give the Wildcats the result they wanted. In the postgame ceremony, the bitter disappointment was evident on the players’ faces. But they left an indelible mark as league champions on and off the field, with a team GPA of 3.613—tops in the CCS.
No single game—not even the section championship—can take away from the months of growth the team experienced, the bonds that were forged and the resilience the players displayed times beyond number.
Girls cross country
Wildcats junior Piper Pyle had a season to remember, establishing personal-records (PRs) in every distance, culminating in an appearance in the CIF State Championships on Nov. 29 at Fresno’s Woodward Park.
Pyle, who was making her first appearance at State, covered the 5K course (3.1 miles) in 19:19.7, good for 97th place in a Division II race field of 196 runners. Pyle qualified for State after running 18:58 in the CCS Championships at Crystal Springs, a PR of 27 seconds at the 2.95-mile course.
She opened the season with a fourth-place finish in the Ed Sias Invitational, a result that foreshadowed four top-10 finishes in SCVAL meets. That included a PR of 19:03.9 at Palo Alto’s Baylands Park on Oct. 21.
