Gunn's Brandon & Kevin Gordon shine in 34-25 win over Los Altos

By Vince Liu, Town Crier Correspondent

After trailing an opponent it figured to handle, the Gunn High football team needed a pick-me-up tonic to kick-start its sputtering engine last Friday against visiting Los Altos.

What it got was a double shot of Gordon — not the gin variety but in the persons of Brandon and Kevin. The brothers put on a display of offensive fireworks that lifted the Titans to a 34-25 non-league victory over the Eagles.

Big brother Brandon took the second-half kickoff at the 5-yard line, veered to his left and accelerated past a host of tacklers down the left sideline for a 95-yard touchdown.

The game-turning romp gave Gunn its first lead, one it never relinquished. It also reportedly broke the school record for the longest scoring kickoff return, a mark held by brother Kevin, who broke one for 88 yards last season.

The brothers staged their own brand of anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better sibling act all afternoon.

Not to be outdone, Kevin caught six passes for 151 yards and three touchdowns. Twice the Eagles threatened to pull away at 9-0 and 17-7, and each time Kevin made catches in the end zone to keep the Titans within striking distance. Neither catch was more clutch than his third TD grab in the fourth quarter.

Nursing a 20-17 lead made possible by Brandon’s heroics, Gunn faced a third-and-15 at the Los Altos 35 when Kevin dropped a wide-open would-be scoring pass near the end zone. Undaunted, Titans quarterback Doug Campbell looked for Kevin again on fourth down, hitting him perfectly for a score. The extra point gave Gunn a 27-17 lead and pretty much the game.

Junior running back Darius Johnson made sure of that when he carried the ball five times in a six-play drive to paydirt, stretching Gunn’s lead to 34-17. The powerfully built 227-pound bruiser led all rushers with 139 yards on 19 carries.

After the game, Kevin admitted he was plenty miffed at himself for dropping the TD pass.

“I’m grateful coach gave me a second chance,” he said.

“I’m grateful that he caught it,” said a smiling Sam Picture, Gunn’s second-year coach.

Picture is also grateful he has Campbell directing his offense again this year. The all-league senior who quarterbacked Gunn into the second round of Central Coast Section playoffs in 2002, picked up where he left off last season.

After a slow start in the first quarter when he threw an interception to kill a drive, Campbell soon hit his stride. He proceeded to toss three scoring passes, all to the younger Gordon, and finished the game 10-of-13 for 126 yards.

Campbell was also cited by Picture for his defensive work at safety, along with defensive end Tom Blake, linebacker P.J. McGranahan and defensive tackle Adam Juratovac. Campbell stayed fresh by being frequently spelled by his understudy, junior Collin Felch. It was a prudent move considering the two-way playing Campbell was toiling in stifling heat that reached into the mid-1990s.

Both coaches cited the heat as a factor in the game but with a different take. “I think the heat got to us a little bit in the second half, but that’s no excuse,” said Los Altos’ first-year coach, Bob Sykes.

Picture, on the other hand, credited his off-season boot camp-like program, nicknamed “death camp” by some of his players, for keeping his athletes in top physical as well as mental football shape. “I think our year-around conditioning paid off today,” he said.

Despite the loss, Sykes was upbeat about his team. I’m real happy with what we did today,” he said after the game. “We need more work on defense.”

Sykes is the third head football coach at Los Altos in the last five years and was hired to turn around a program that seemed to have gotten used to losing. He has ample experience spending several years at Saratoga before guiding The King’s Academy to a 7-3 record in its inaugural football season last year.

Sykes needed to look no further for inspiration than across the sideline, where his counterpart was in a similar position last year. Picture took over a football team in disarray last season and guided Gunn to the school’s first ever CCS semifinal appearance.

“Gunn’s coach has done a heck of a job,” Sykes said.

The Eagles’ new head coach already has a believer in his starting quarterback, Donnie Ecker.

“Coach brings discipline, hard work and a winning desire to us,” Ecker said. “We need to grasp the concept on how to win. No worry; we’ll turn around.”

Ecker scored on a 4-yard run in the fourth quarter and engineered three scoring drives in the first half that gave his team a 17-14 lead at intermission. Joey Fulcher’s 37-yard field goal in the opening quarter was followed by touchdown runs by Royce Hurd (14 yards) and Ryan Sherbino (1 yard) in the second period.

On Friday, Los Altos plays at Mills, while Gunn hosts Woodside. Both games are scheduled to begin at 3:15 p.m.