{"id":42283,"date":"2014-09-26T18:56:45","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T01:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=42283"},"modified":"2017-06-10T00:24:07","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T07:24:07","slug":"los-altos-0-monrovia-0-1st-qtr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=42283","title":{"rendered":"Cardiac Cats Conquer Los Altos"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"It<\/a>

It was tough but Monrovia finally broke away from Los Altos. (Photo by Steven Mercado)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Steven Mercado<\/p>\n

(Monrovia)- With just over a minute left in the football game, the Monrovia Wildcats were down 25-20 to the Los Altos Conquerors at Wildcat Stadium on Friday, Sept. 26. Junior quarterback Asaph Zamora led Monrovia down the field from its own 10-yard line to the red zone and capped off the drive with a 20-yard touchdown pass to junior running back Lawrence Spicer. There were 6.4 seconds left on the clock and this touchdown proved to be the game-winner as Monrovia emerged victorious, 27-25.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had too many meltdowns on special teams. It came through in the end for us,\u201d said Monrovia HC Chris Stevens. \u201cWe\u2019re deep. That\u2019s one of our strengths. We\u2019re deep at all our skilled positions. It\u2019s great to have guys that are ready to step in and do those things for us and Spicer did a great job tonight. I\u2019m proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wildcats battled from behind for the majority of the contest, only leading for seven minutes of game time. Los Altos scored their first two touchdowns of the game through their ground game, which conquered Monrovia\u2019s defense early. 41 of Los Altos\u2019 44 total offensive plays were running plays and it proved successful against the \u2018Cats for the majority of the game.<\/p>\n

Sophomore running back Tyler Nevens led the Conquerors\u2019 run-heavy offense with 109 yards and two touchdowns off 19 carries. He scored the first touchdown of the game 14 seconds into the second quarter and senior running back Matthew Hayashi pounded his way into the endzone with a two-yard goal-line run for the second touchdown of the game.<\/p>\n

Monrovia faced a 12-0 deficit with 5:06 to play in the first half, but closed the half with a 38-yard touchdown run from Spicer and a two-minute drill headed by Zamora that ended with an 11-yard touchdown pass to senior wide receiver Octavius Spencer. They went into the locker room with a 13-12 lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing together. Believing in each other. We didn\u2019t do it last week and we did it this week. It took us just about down to the end and obviously, they got athletes that we don\u2019t and we now know we can compete with that,\u201d said Los Altos HC Dale Ziola. \u201cWe\u2019re running with speed like that with Charter Oak and the rest of our league has got some fast dudes. We can hang. We should be able to take that from this game and know that we got a shot every Friday night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevens capped off the Conquerors first drive of the second half with a 12-yard touchdown run and immediately followed with a pass into the endzone for the two-point conversion to give Los Altos a 20-13 lead. Monrovia answered with an eight-play, 80-yard drive that was capped off with a two-yard touchdown run by senior wide receiver Jordan Nathan.<\/p>\n

This Friday-night thriller brings Monrovia to a 4-1 record and Los Altos to 2-3. The Wildcats will begin conference play on Oct. 10 as they host San Marino and the Conquerors will begin conference play on the same night as they host the Chino Cowboys.<\/p>\n

*** Spicer started at running back in place of junior RB Kameron Johnson, who was out with an injury. He also filled the strong safety spot that Johnson normally plays, which allowed Spicer to be in position for the interception on the last play of the game.<\/p>\n

*** Spicer finished with 96 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries. Before Friday, he averaged only 15.5 rushing yards per game. Spicer\u2019s only catch on the night was the game-winning 20-yard pass from Zamora.<\/p>\n

*** Los Altos senior starting RB Gabriel Perez pitched in with 41 yards off 15 carries. Hayashi finished with five carries for 25 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n

*** Zamora was sacked seven times. He was sacked three times in the final four minutes and 30 seconds of the game.<\/p>\n

*** Los Altos blocked two Monrovia punts: one after the Wildcats\u2019 first drive of the game and the other resulting in a safety to give the Conquerors a 25-20 lead with 5:41 left in the game.<\/p>\n

*** Zamora completed 12-21 passes for 183 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Each of his two touchdown passes came with less than two minutes left in each half.<\/p>\n

*** Monrovia head coach Chris Stevens on how they were able to pull out the win: \u201cGrit and determination. We\u2019re down, but we\u2019re never out. Our guys kept fighting and I think it comes down to how we kept believing in each other. We knew we made some tremendous mistakes, which wasn\u2019t sound football, but in the end, when they had to rally, they rallied and that\u2019s a tribute to those guys right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

*** Los Altos head coach Dale Ziola on what ways the Conquerors can grow from the loss:
\n*** Spicer on his reaction to catching the game-winning touchdown pass: \u201cMy first feeling was to check to make sure I got the touchdown. I thanked God after that and then I was just happy because I know our team should have won, I know that means a lot to our team, and we\u2019re a family. That\u2019s what our coach teaches us everyday \u2014 that we\u2019re a family.\u201d<\/p>\n

*** Monrovia\u2019s starting offensive line: LT – #66 Jason Daly (senior), LG – #72 Thomas Ruble (sophomore), C – #55 Christian Walton (senior), RG – #56 Ty\u2019sean Brown (junior) and RT – #74 Cesar Gutierrez (sophomore).<\/p>\n

*** Los Altos\u2019 starting offensive line: LT – #65 Lester Paz (junior), LG – #56 Oscar Villa (sophomore), C – #72 Eric Castillo (senior), RG – #77 David Tolmachoff (senior), RT – #75 George Steward (senior).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Steven Mercado (Monrovia)- With just over a minute left in the football game, the Monrovia Wildcats were down 25-20 to the Los Altos Conquerors at Wildcat Stadium on Friday, Sept. 26. Junior quarterback Asaph Zamora led Monrovia down the field from its own 10-yard line to the red zone and capped off the drive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12816],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hsfootball"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42283"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42543,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42283\/revisions\/42543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}